Strategy  of  Life 

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ARTHUR  PORRITT 


•rnia 
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The  Strategy  of  Life 


UJTIV.   OF  CALIF.   LIBRARY,   LOS  ANGELSS 


The  Strategy  of  Life 

A  Book  for  Boys  and  Young  Men 


By 
ARTHUR  PORRITT 


With  a  Foreword  by 
DR.  J.  H.  JOWETT 


"There  is  no  art  so  difficult  yet  so  lovely  as  living." 

—JOHN  WATSON. 


NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

Fleming   H.  Revell    Company 

LONDON  AND  EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avem» 
Chicago':  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London :  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  75  Princes  Street 


To 

My  Son  ROY 


In  whom  —  were  he  not  lying  in  "  some 

corner  of  a  foreign  field"  —  this   little 

book   would    have  found    at   least  one 

appreciative  reader 


2131953 


s 


Foreword 

I  WISH  that  this  little  book  might  be  placed  in 
the  hands  of  every  boy  and  young  fellow 
throughout  the  Anglo-Saxon  world.  Here  we 
have  practical  guidance  in  the  essential  secrets  which 
lie  behind  and  beneath  all  Social  Reconstruction: 
even  the  fashioning  of  character  and  the  nourishing 
of  life.  I  once  wrote  to  Henry  Drummond  inviting 
him  to  speak  to  my  congregation  in  Newcastle-on- 
Tyne.  He  very  graciously  declined,  and  he  did  so 
for  this  very  characteristic  reason :  "  I  do  not  know 
the  species."  Drummond  knew  University  men,  he 
knew  them  through  and  through;  he  professed  he 
had  no  intimacy  with  the  mixed  congregation.  Mr. 
Porritt  knows  the  species  when  he  seeks  to  be  the 
friendly  counsellor  of  boys  and  young  men.  He  is 
not  a  spectator,  looking  upon  their  life  from  the  out- 
side. He  knows  it  from  within.  His  work  among 
them,  and  his  friendship  with  them,  has  made  him 
familiar  with  their  ground.  He  looks  out  of  their 
windows,  and  he  sees  their  world,  and  he  sets  the 
noblest  ideals  upon  their  horizon,  luring  them  in  pur- 
suit of  the  better  and  the  best.  He  champions  an 
ample  and  symmetrical  life.  He  opens  doors  on 

7 


8  FOREWORD 

every  side,  and  every  avenue  is  lit  up  with  the  light 
of  the  supreme  relationship  to  Christ.  There  is  a 
central  Altar  and  everything  looks  towards  it,  but 
"  the  bells  upon  the  horses  "  are  also  holiness  to  the 
Lord.  His  spiritual  world  is  a  wide  realm  and  its 
sanctities  embrace  all  the  activities,  of  body,  mind, 
and  soul.  It  is  a  healthy  and  wholesome  book,  and 
I  heartily  hope  it  will  be  given  to  tens  of  thousands 
of  boys  throughout  the  English-speaking  world. 

J.  H.  JOWETT. 
Westminster  Chapel, 

London. 


Contents 


I.  MAKING  A  LIFE 

II.  THREE  IDEALS  . 

III.  CHARACTER 

IV.  JESUS  AS  HERO  . 

V.  RELIGION  IN  ACTION  . 

VI.  A  MAN'S  MAN  . 

VII.  THE  MARKS  OF  A  GENTLEMAN 

VIII.  HABITS  AND  VICES     . 

IX.  PURITY  AND  CHIVALRY 

X.  FRIENDSHIPS 

XL  CHOOSING  A  CAREER  . 

XII.  BUSINESS  APTITUDE  . 

XIII.  PERSEVERANCE  . 

XIV.  TRUTH  AND  TRUTHFULNESS 

XV.  OPEN-MINDEDNESS      . 

XVI.  READING  AND  STUDY 

XVII.  KEEPING  FIT     . 

XVIII.  RECREATION 

XIX.  SPORTS  AND  HOBBIES 

XX.  AMUSEMENTS 

XXI.  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING     . 

XXII.  CHEERFULNESS 

XXIII.  PUBLIC  SERVICE 


ii 

19 
26 

34 
40 

49 
55 
62 
68 
72 

79 
86 

9i 

98 

104 

no 

"5 

122 

127 

134 

140 
148 
154 


MAKING  A  LIFE 

ONLY  within  prescribed  limits  can  we  claim 
to  be  the  architects  of  our  own  lives;  but 
we  are  free  to  make  some  most  momentous 
decisions,  and  one  of  these  challenges  a  young  man 
very  early  in  his  career.  He  has  to  decide  what 
shall  be  his  goal  in  life,  the  aim  and  object  of  his 
ambition — whether  all  the  driving  force  of  his  energy 
shall  be  thrown  into  money-making  or  into  making 
a  worthy  life.  Ambition,  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word,  is  wholly  commendable;  but  ambition  ruth- 
lessly pursued  and  directed  to  the  single  object  of 
making  wealth  spells  the  destruction  of  a  man's 
finest  qualities.  For  ambition  men  will — 

"Wade  through  slaughter  to  a  throne, 
And  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  mankind." 

We  are  witnessing  a  sharp  recoil  from  the  hard  in- 
dividualistic commercialism  of  the  Victorian  age,  and 
a  revolt  from  the  gospel  of  "  Self-Help  "  which  Dr. 
Samuel  Smiles  preached  to  his  receptive  generation. 
The  reaction  has  perhaps  gone  too  far.  We  may 
need  to  clear  our  minds  from  some  cant.  Success  in 
life  is  worth  the  wrestle.  Wealth  acquired  honestly 
is  a  boon.  Prosperity  is  not  an  evil.  These  things 
are  among  the  rewards  of  effort  and  the  incentives 
to  effort.  They  stir  men  to  enterprise,  energy,  and 

XI 


12  THE  STEATEQY  OP  LIFE 

inventiveness.  Progress  depends,  in  a  large  measure, 
upon  their  encouragement.  Idealism  does  not  imply 
poverty  or  inefficiency  or  stagnation.  It  is  when 
material  prosperity  becomes  an  obsession  that  am- 
bition assumes  a  dangerous  phase,  and  when  "  things  " 
get  into  the  saddle  and  ride  mankind.  Success 
bought  at  the  price  of  character,  wealth  made  by 
chicanery  or  by  ruthless  exploitation  of  human  lives, 
property  gained  by  anti-social  methods  are  intrin- 
sically evil.  Their  yield  is  bitter  fruit — they  do  not 
make  a  life;  they  mar  it.  In  making  money  a  man 
may  unmake  himself,  and  add  immeasurably  to  the 
sum  of  human  misery. 

"  It  is  not,"  says  Dr.  G.  H.  Morrison,  "  the  rare 
gifts,  the  possession  of  the  few ;  it  is  not  great  wealth, 
great  learning,  great  genius,  or  great  power — it  is 
not  these  things  that  make  the  possessors  happy;  it 
is  health,  it  is  friendship,  it  is  love  at  home,  it  is  the 
voices  of  children,  it  is  sunshine — it  is  the  blessings 
that  are  commonest,  not  these  that  are  rarest." 

As  long  ago  as  Ancient  Rome  men  said  to  their 
sons :  "  Make  money  honestly  if  you  can ;  but  if  not, 
by  any  means  and  every  means  make  money."  This 
devil's  doctrine  has  persisted  through  the  centuries, 
and  has  nourished  distorted  ambition  in  every  age 
and  land.  The  idea  that  wealth  is  a  sure  avenue  to 
happiness  has  lured  men  like  a  syren's  song  to  the 
ruin  of  all  that  is  worth  cherishing  in  life. 

The  truest  sources  of  happiness  are  to  be  found  in 
what  Paley  calls  "the  prudent  constitution  of  the 
habits,"  and  in  what  a  sage  described  as  "  the  limi- 
tation of  aspirations."  There  is  a  common  maxim — 
"If  you  have  to  do  anything  for  nothing,  do  it  for 


MAKING  A  LIFE  13 

yourself,"  embodying  a  philosophy  of  sheer  selfish- 
ness which  has  perhaps  made  many  millionaires.  Few 
great  fortunes  have  been  made  without  the  harden- 
ing of  hearts  and  the  stultifying  of  generous  emotions. 
Mr.  B.  Paul  Neuman,  in  one  of  his  character  novels, 
presents  a  highly-finished  study  of  the  processes  of 
fortune-making.  His  hero,  Paul  Dominy,  a  young 
foreign  Jew,  left  an  orphan  in  New  York,  and  brought 
up  by  a  Polish  family,  is  given  the  choice  of  being 
educated  as  a  musician — music  is  his  chiefest  joy — or 
being  trained  for  business.  He  selects  business,  and 
a  passion  to  be  wealthy  soon  devours  his  soul,  and 
overwhelms  it.  By  one  coup  after  another,  Dominy 
amasses  riches  beyond  dreams  of  avarice.  His  mil- 
lions become  a  burden  to  him ;  but  the  zeal  for  dollar- 
making  has  him  enslaved.  A  girl  he  loves  will  not 
marry  him  to  divide  his  love  between  her  and  his 
money,  and  in  this  great  alternative  he  thrusts  aside 
love  in  his  quest  for  gold.  A  child-lover,  he  is  child- 
less, and  children  who  were  once  attracted  to  him  are 
repelled  by  a  mysterious  repugnancy.  Illness  assails 
him,  and  loneliness  depresses  him.  The  end  is 
tragedy — depression,  drugs,  desperation,  suicide.  The 
profitlessness  of  a  man  gaining  the  whole  world  and 
losing  his  own  soul  is  driven  home  by  Mr.  Neuman's 
novel.  It  ranks  with  George  Eliot's  Silas  Marner  as 
an  indictment  of  money- worship. 

While  gold  can  be  bought  too  dearly,  there  are 
many  things  gold  cannot  buy.  The  real  treasures 
of  life  are  beyond  money  and  beyond  price.  God 
seems  to  have  decreed  that  those  things  which  make 
life  worth  living — love,  friendship,  sympathy,  peace 
of  mind,  joy  of  soul — shall  not  be  trafficked  for  gold 


14  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

in  the  market-place.  Gold  can  pay  for  pleasure ;  but 
it  cannot  buy  happiness. 

The  motives  that  move  great  men  were  discussed 
in  a  suggestive  way  by  Lord  Haldane  in  the  evidence 
he  gave  before  the  Coal  Commission.  To  the  sug- 
gestion that  monetary  reward  alone  made  men  ener- 
getic, resourceful,  and  industrious,  Lord  Haldane 
gave  a  strong  denial.  "  Money,"  he  said,  "  is  not  the 
all-compelling  motive,  or  even  the  most  powerful  in- 
centive. The  great  dynamics  of  success  in  life  are 
honor  and  respect.  The  glory  of  a  popular  preacher 
is  very  great:  the  glory  of  a  successful  politician  is 
very  great.  He  is  sometimes  as  poor  as  a  rat ;  but  he 
does  not  mind.  He  has  got  much  more  than  money, 
and  he  can  dine  with  a  millionaire  every  night  if  he 
pleases." 

Again,  it  is  necessary  perhaps  to  repeat  that  I  am 
not  depreciating  success  in  life — even  financial  suc- 
cess. But  a  young  man  has  seriously  to  consider 
what  success  really  is,  and  to  make  sure  that  he  is 
not  setting  out  in  life  to  chase  phantoms.  When  Dr. 
Samuel  Smiles  preached  "  Self-Help "  he  did  not 
mean  "Help  Yourself";  but  that  fatal  twist  was 
given,  in  practice,  to  his  teaching.  Quite  unwittingly 
Dr.  Smiles  paved  the  way  for  an  even  more  selfish 
doctrine — "  Get  on  or  get  out,"  which  went  one  stage 
further  towards  the  hellishness  of  "Fire  out  the 
fools."  These  are  modern  variants  of  the  ancient 
barbarism:  "Every  man  for  himself,  and  the  devil 
take  the  hindermost."  The  end  of  the  Victorian  age 
found  that  doctrine  again  regnant,  with  expositors 
even  in  the  camp  of  organized  Christianity. 

A  more  sensitive  social  conscience  is  making  us 


MAKING  A  LIFE  15 

realize  that  some  of  Dr.  Samuel  Smiles's  heroes 
profited  by  cut-throat  competition,  and  "  made  their 
piles  "  by  unblushingly  sweating  their  employees. 
They  gathered  fortunes — as  for  Lanes  were  gathered 
in  the  Victorian  age — with  little  concern  for  the 
social  or  moral  conditions  of  their  workpeople.  They 
found  the  human  machine  cheaper  than  the  machinery 
it  manipulated;  and,  as  long  as  there  was  a  margin 
of  labor  in  the  market,  it  was  far  easier  to  replace 
labor  than  machinery.  By  comparatively  inexpensive 
philanthropy  they  salved  their  consciences — support- 
ing enterprises  for  the  victims  immolated  by  the  very 
system  which  gave  them  affluence. 

Nowadays,  we  are  less  concerned  as  to  how  a 
wealthy  man  spends  his  money;  but  we  are  very 
much  concerned  as  to  how  he  makes  it.  We  hear 
less  of  the  stewardship  of  wealth  than  of  the  steward- 
ship of  life,  which  embodies  the  root  principle  that 
wealth  made  by  the  exploitation  of  human  beings  is 
wealth  that  no  stewardship  can  make  an  honorable 
possession. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  career  a  young  man  has 
to  face  up  to  this  fundamental  question.  Upon  his 
attitude  to  the  ethics  of  money-making  depends  his 
attitude  to  a  thousand  subsidiary  things.  It  sets  his 
moral  compass.  The  dividing  line  between  the  man 
determined  to  make  money,  honestly  or  dishonestly, 
and  the  man  who,  while  eager  enough  to  make  money, 
wants  to  make  something  else  as  well — a  life — is  a 
frontier  of  conscience.  "  There  is,"  says  President 
Wilson,  "  a  great  wind  of  moral  force  moving 
through  the  world,  and  every  man  who  opposes  him- 
self to  that  wind  will  go  down  in  disgrace." 


16  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

In  almost  every  profession  and  business  there  are 
tricks  of  the  trade  and  customs  of  the  profession  that 
are  equivocal,  and  even  worse  than  dubious.  Some 
of  them  are  so  ingrained  in  the  fibre  of  business  life 
that  to  fight  single-handedly  against  them  is  to  court 
ruin.  A  scrupulous  young  man  may  find  himself 
compelled  to  compromise  with  his  conscience,  for  we 
live  in  an  imperfect  world  in  which  compromises  are 
inevitable.  Unless  he  makes  the  compromise,  and 
accepts  the  trade  customs,  he  may  be  squeezed  out 
of  his  business  without  having  shaken  the  custom 
against  which  his  conscience  revolts.  Wisdom  sug- 
gests another  course  of  action.  While  the  unscrupu- 
lous business  man  makes  every  possible  use  of  trade 
tricks  and  customs  to  get  rich  quickly,  the  scrupulous 
man  acts  on  the  principle  of  making  the  least  possible 
use  of  the  dubious  trade  tricks  and  customs,  and 
holds  himself  ready  whenever  occasion  arises  to  re- 
pudiate them  altogether.  This  attitude  is  the  one 
which  in  the  long  run  will  rid  trade  of  trickery  and 
double-dealing. 

The  cynic  may  say  that  conscience  in  business  is 
a  dead  weight;  but  there  are  honorable  men  by  the 
thousand  who  carry  their  consciences  into  their  of- 
fices, and  their  religious  principles  into  their  trading. 
Possibly  they  may  fall  a  little  behind  in  the  fierce 
competitive  race ;  but  men  of  this  type  never  live  to 
regret  paying  heed  to  the  scruples  of  a  sensitive  con- 
science. 

Civilization  is  molten  at  the  moment,  and  the  re- 
casting moulds  have  yet  to  set.  Possibly  the 
twentieth  century  will  be  as  noteworthy  for  the  de- 
velopment of  cooperation  in  industry  (even  in  in- 


MAKING  A  LIFE  17 

ternational  commerce)  as  the  nineteenth  century  was 
notable  for  the  unblushing  savagery  of  its  unre- 
stricted competitive  commerce.  Interdependence  of 
man  on  man,  class  on  class,  nation  on  nation,  is  one 
lesson  the  war  has  taught.  The  whole  world  is  fluid. 
In  very  truth  it  may  be  said  that  "  Bliss  is  it  in  this 
dawn  to  be  alive,  but  to  be  young  is  very  heaven." 
Almost  it  seems  as  if  the  age  of  wealth-obsession 
were  passing.  Men's  minds  are  bent  on  fashioning  a 
civilization  that  shall  not  confer  vast  fortunes  on  the 
few,  and  grinding  poverty  on  millions.  The  war  ex- 
posed the  rottenness  of  the  pillars  of  civilization; 
Peace,  it  may  be  hoped,  will  usher  in  an  era  when 
"  goodwill  to  men  "  and  "  brotherhood  of  the  classes  " 
will  not  be  pious  hypocrisy. 

Just  because  the  young  man  of  to-day  will  have 
a  formative  hand  in  the  reconstruction  of  civilization, 
his  decision  as  to  whether  he  purposes  to  make  money 
or  make  a  life  is  of  immense  consequence.  The  al- 
ternatives before  him  are  vital  to  himself,  and  in  a 
measure  to  his  age.  While  it  is  the  positive  duty  .of 
every  young  man  to  develop  and  exert  every  scrap  of 
talent  he  possesses,  every  gift  he  can  cultivate,  every 
scrap  of  knowledge,  skill,  judgment,  and  wisdom  he 
can  acquire,  it  is  supremely  important  into  what 
channel  his  ambition  should  be  directed.  "  Beware, 
Dick,"  says  one  of  Rudyard  Kipling's  characters  to 
an  artist  who  was  lowering  his  art  standard  for 
money.  "  Beware,  or  you  will  fall  under  the  damna- 
tion of  the  check-book,  and  that  is  worse  than 
death." 

Thomas  Carlyle  said  it  was  a  tragedy  of  human 
life  if  one  mind  capable  of  knowledge  should  remain 


18  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

ignorant.  It  has  taken  us  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury to  see  that  it  is  also  economic  waste  for  an 
educable  mind  to  be  left  uneducated.  A  young  man 
may  have  a  brain,  or  a  gift  which,  developed  to  the 
uttermost,  may  make  the  world  his  debtor — make  him 
a  saviour  of  society.  If  he  fails  to  grasp  any  oppor- 
tunity for  cultivating  it,  or  if  the  opportunity  is  de- 
nied him,  his  gift  may  go  to  waste,  and  the  common- 
wealth— the  world  indeed — may  be  poorer  for  the 
neglect. 

The  highest  ambition  of  a  young  man  embarking 
on  his  career,  and  working  out  the  strategy  of  his 
life,  should  be  to  win  a  reputation  as  one  who  never 
dodges  hard  work,  never  shirks  responsibility,  and 
never  forfeits  his  self-esteem  by  lowering  his  stand- 
ard of  right  dealing.  To  be  known  as  a  man  whose 
word  is  his  bond,  is  far  more  precious  than  to  have 
the  reputation  of  commanding  a  big  bank  balance. 
These  qualities  make  success  worthy.  Success  with- 
out them  is  failure.  An  honest  man  is  still  the 
noblest  work  of  God. 


II 

THREE  IDEALS 

HAPPINESS,  usefulness,  goodness  are  three 
ideals  of  life  which  a  well-advised  young 
man  will  keep  ever  before  him  as  lodestars. 
Tolstoy,  in  War  and  Peace,  sends  his  hero,  Peter,  the 
richest  man  in  Russia,  through  a  grim  experience  of 
misery  that  compels  him  to  make  a  complete  revalu- 
ation of  life's  values.  "  He  learned,"  says  Tolstoy, 
"  that  man  is  meant  for  happiness,  and  that  this  hap- 
piness is  in  him,  in  the  satisfaction  of  the  daily  needs 
of  existence ;  and  that  unhappiness  is  the  fatal  result, 
not  of  our  need,  but  of  our  abundance."  "  Life," 
Professor  William  James,  after  quoting  Tolstoy's 
dictum,  adds,  "  is  always  worth  living,  if  one  have 
responsive  sensibilities." 

Possibly  one  should  vary  the  order  of  these  three 
ideals — placing  goodness  first  and  usefulness  second 
— allocating  happiness  to  the  third  place,  because  it 
is  the  reward  of  the  other  two  virtues.  With  the 
years  there  comes  to  most  men  an  ever-deepening 
conviction  that  the  way  of  transgressors  is  hard,  and 
that  the  path  to  happiness  is  along  the  hard  road  of 
duty,  usefulness,  and  restraint.  Maurice  Maeterlinck, 
in  a  poetical  allegory,  The  Blue  Bird,  shows  that  the 
quest  for  happiness  always  brings  us  back  to  the 
beaten  track  of  unselfishness  and  duty. 

Whenever  I  am  tempted  to  doubt  the  dependence 


20  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

of  happiness  on  duty,  I  take  down  Boswell's  Life  of 
Johnson,  and  revive  my  memories  of  the  "  old 
straggler's  "  stern  sense  of  duty.  Johnson  talked,  or 
rather  thundered  forth,  on  most  subjects,  but  he 
never  said  very  much  about  duty.  He  simply  did 
it — did  it  at  all  cost.  I  am  not  sure  that  he  was  a 
wholly  happy  man;  but,  as  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell 
points  out,  he  never  whined  over  his  hardships.  Life 
was  an  incessant  struggle  to  him.  He  was  poor,  half- 
blind,  scrofulous,  prone  to  melancholy,  proud,  re- 
sentful of  the  patronage  to  which  he  had  to  submit, 
fearful  of  death,  especially  death  from  the  top  down- 
wards; but  he  went  through  a  hard  life,  faithful  to 
what  he  felt  was  his  duty — a  dutiful  son,  a  dutiful 
husband,  and  a  dutiful  citizen. 

We  know  Dr.  Johnson  as  we  know  few  living  men 
— our  nearest  friends,  even — and  nobody  knowing 
him  through  Boswell's  wonderful  biography  can 
wholly  escape  his  spell.  There  is  a  Johnson  Club  in 
London,  and  once  Bonner,  the  famous  Australian 
cricketer,  was  a  guest  at  its  annual  dinner.  Speaker 
after  speaker  had  extolled  Johnson;  but  when 
Bonner's  turn  to  speak  came,  he  naively  confessed 
he  had  never  heard  of  Dr.  Johnson  till  that  evening. 
Some  one  laughed,  and  Bonner  hastily  added  by  way 
of  vindication:  "  Well,  I  come  from  a  country  where 
you  could  ride  a  whole  day  on  horseback  and  never 
find  a  man  who  ever  did  hear  of  Dr.  Johnson.  But, 
after  hearing  about  Dr.  Johnson  to-night,  I  will  say 
this — if  I  were  not  Bonner,  the  cricketer,  I  would 
like  to  be  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson." 

Glancing  over  "  a  wild  moraine  of  forgotten  books 
of  a  glacier  of  days  gone  by,"  my  eye  caught  the 


THEEE  IDEALS  21 

title  of  a  volume,  The  Duty  of  Happiness.  I  did  not 
open  it,  or  want  to  open  it.  But  it  recalled  the  story 
of  a  cotton-operative  who  took  his  children  for  a 
happy  day  in  the  country  one  holiday.  The  little  fel- 
lows were  soon  tired  with  walking,  and,  by  the  time 
they  reached  their  destination,  were  peevish  and  tear- 
ful. "  Look  here,"  said  their  father  impatiently, 
"  I've  brought  you  boys  out  for  a  happy  day,  and 
you've  got  to  be  happy ;  go  and  play  in  that  field,  and 
if  you  aren't  happy  in  ten  minutes  I'll  give  you  all 
three  of  you  a  good  hiding  until  (you  are  happy." 

The  happiness  of  duty  done  is  a  reality — and  there 
is  not  much  happiness  without  it.  The  happiness 
that  springs  from  a  sense  of  usefulness  in  life  is  just 
as  real.  Whatever  may  be  a  man's  function  in  life — 
whether  he  is  an  architect,  a  doctor,  a  farmer,  a 
lawyer,  a  clerk,  a  miner,  or  a  manual  laborer — he  is 
an  asset  to  the  commonwealth  and  a  useful  member 
of  society,  if  he  does  his  duty  efficiently  and  con- 
scientiously. It  is  not  sufficient  to  scrape  through 
work  without  incurring  censure.  Duty  demands 
more  than  that — it  demands  that  heart  and  soul 
should  be  put  into  work. 

On  the  very  eve  of  her  execution,  Nurse  Cavell 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  nurses  with  whom  she  had 
worked  so  single-mindedly,  in  which  the  guiding 
principle  of  her  life  found  noble  expression.  She 
reminded  them  that  she  had  always  taught  them  that 
"  devotion  to  duty  would  bring  you  true  happiness ; 
and  that  the  thought  that  you  had  done  your  duty 
earnestly  and  cheerfully  before  God  and  your  own 
conscience  would  be  your  greatest  support  in  the  try- 
ing moments  of  life,  and  in  the  face  of  death." 


22  THE  STEATEGY  OP  LIFE 

One  of  the  most  perplexing  problems  of  modern 
mechanical  industry  is  to  invest  drudgery  with  hope 
and  cheer  and  contentment.  Repetitional  work 
breeds  sheer  boredom,  and  repetitional  processes  are 
unavoidable  in  a  manufactory.  Only  a  very  strong 
sense  of  duty,  and  a  full  recognition  of  the  usefulness 
of  such  work,  can  keep  such  workers  alive  to  the 
necessity  of  conscientiousness.  When  a  man  has 
schooled  himself  to  regard  monotonous  duties,  not 
as  task  work  for  a  livelihood,  but  as  his  individual 
contribution  to  the  total  life  of  the  community,  half 
his  battle  has  been  won.  With  talk  about  the 
"  blessedness  of  drudgery "  I  have  scant  patience. 
It  is  sheer  cant.  Drudgery  is  and  must  always  be 
hateful;  and  were  it  not  essential  to  the  life  of  the 
whole  community,  the  imposition  of  drudgery  on  any 
man  would  be  an  outrage. 

It  might  be  easier  to  endure  drudgery,  were  it  pos- 
sible occasionally  to  see  the  fruits  of  drudgery  faith- 
fully done.  Two  friends  motoring  in  Switzerland 
ventured  to  cross  one  of  the  high  passes  in  their  car. 
The  narrow  road  wound  down  the  mountain-side — 
a  sheer  abyss  on  the  right  hand,  a  precipitous  alp  on 
the  left.  Half-way  down,  as  the  descent  was  being 
slowly  and  carefully  made,  one  man  asked  his  friend : 
"  What,  really,  are  we  putting  our  faith  in  now  ?  " 
The  other  man  thought  a  moment.  "At  last,"  he 
answered,  "  we  are  trusting  to  the  honest  workman- 
ship of  the  unknown  men  who  made  this  car."  Pos- 
sibly as  they  constructed  that  car  the  workmen 
groaned  over  their  drudgery,  and  possibly  felt  it  a 
grievance  that  they  should  toil  to  minister  to  some 
one  else's  pleasure.  But  they  had  done  their  duty 


THEEE  IDEALS  23 

conscientiously,  the  motor-car  stood  the  terrific  strain, 
and  if  they  had  heard  of  the  two  motorists  who 
risked  their  necks  in  confidence  in  their  honest  crafts- 
manship, the  mechanics  might  have  enjoyed  some 
satisfaction  from  the  sense  of  useful  work  dutifully 
done. 

Into  the  mouth  of  Stradivarius,  George  Eliot  puts 
the  remark  that  "  it  would  be  purgatory  to  make 
violins  ill " — 

"  When  any  man  holds 
'Twixt  chin  and  hand  a  violin  of  mine, 
He  will  be  glad  that  Stradivari  lived, 
Made  violins  and  made  them  of  the  best. 
The  masters  only  know  whose  work  is  good: 
They  will  choose  mine,  and  while  God  gives  them  skill 
I  give  them  instruments  to  play  upon. 
God  choosing  me  to  help  Him." 

"  What,  were  God 
At  fault  for  violins,  thou  absent? 

"Yes 
He  were  at  fault  for  Stradivari's  violins 

.    .    .    'Tis  God  gives  skill, 
But  not  without  men's  hands:  He  could  not  make 
Antonio  Stradivari's  violins 
Without  Antonio." 

Stradivarius  here  emphasizes  the  truth  that  man  be- 
comes a  fellow-worker  with  God,  when  a  high  sense 
of  duty  impels  him  to  proficiency  in  his  work. 

The  principle  of  conscientiousness  in  duty  applies 
to  all  work — obscure  or  exalted. 

"  Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  Thy  laws 
Makes  that  and  the  action  fine." 


24  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

In  one  of  her  allegories  Miss  Olive  Schreiner  tells 
of  an  artist  who  painted  a  great  picture.  It  had  a 
wonderful  red  glow  upon  it.  As  the  artist  painted 
he  grew  paler  and  paler,  while  the  picture  grew 
redder  and  redder.  Other  artists  came  and  admired 
the  picture.  "  We  like  his  color,"  they  said ;  "  where 
does  he  get  it  from  ? "  His  color  tubes  contained 
nothing  they  had  not  got.  One  went  to  the  Far  East 
and  bought  costly  pigments,  but  on  the  canvas  they 
faded.  Another  mixed  his  colors  from  a  recipe  in  a 
rare  book,  but  he  did  not  get  that  red  glow.  They 
asked  the  artist  where  he  got  the  color ;  but  he  shook 
his  head  and  went  on  painting.  One  day  he  was 
picked  up  dead  in  front  of  his  easel,  and  when  they 
came  to  put  his  grave-clothes  upon  him,  they  found 
a  wound  on  his  breast — an  old  wound — but  death  had 
sealed  its  edges.  After  a  time  the  artist  was  for- 
gotten, but  his  work  lived.  To  put  his  life's  blood 
into  his  work  should  be  a  young  man's  ideal. 

A  schoolboy  who  plays  no  games  and  works  in- 
cessantly at  his  lessons  is  often  despised  as  a  "  grind  " 
by  his  schoolfellows.  In  this,  schoolboys  have  per- 
haps hit  the  sound  and  healthy  principle  that  poise 
and  balance  are  essentials  in  life.  Certainly,  school 
"  grinds  "  do  not  invariably  win  final  distinction,  or 
even  success  in  life.  A  loss  of  mental  elasticity,  and 
often  exhaustion  of  mental  force,  results.  Relaxa- 
tion is  necessary ;  but  in  working-hours  a  young  man 
should  work.  He  will  fail  if  he  is  content  to  do  his 
bare  duty  in  a  slap-dash,  slip-shod  fashion.  The 
duties  in  office  and  workshop,  that  fall  to  a  boy  or 
young  man,  are  often  irksome  routine-tasks  which 
seem  to  him  trivial  and  inconsequent ;  but,  until  they 


THREE  IDEALS  25 

are  done  conscientiously  and  well,  a  young  man  can 
entertain  very  little  hope  of  being  trusted  with  more 
responsible  and  congenial  duties.  "  A  little  thing  is 
a  little  thing;  but  faithfulness  in  little  things  is  a 
very  great  thing." 

No  life  devoted  to  useful  duties  is  ill-spent — and 
it  is  the  only  life  that  is  truly  happy.  "  Hitch  your 
wagon  to  a  star,"  said  Emerson.  Link  your  prosaic 
job  to  a  high  ideal.  So  drudgery  loses  its  horrors, 
and  life  is  enriched.  A  young  man  may  not  scale 
the  heights  of  success  to  which  his  ambition  soars, 
but  all  his  early  dreams  will  not  be  dissipated  if  he 
is  faithful  to  the  ideal  of  being  dutiful  and  useful. 
As  Browning  says :  "  A  man's  reach  must  exceed  his 
grasp,  or  what's  a  heaven  for  ?  " 


Ill 

CHARACTER 

IT  is  easier  to  recognize  character  than  to  define 
it.  When  Dr.  Samuel  Smiles  published  an 
elaborate  book  on  Character,  his  critics  com- 
plained that  he  had  not  stated  what  character  is.  In 
the  preface  to  a  later  edition,  he  explained  that  he 
took  individual  character  to  be  "  the  highest  embodi- 
ment of  the  human  being — the  noblest  heraldry  of 
Man."  A  broader  definition  was  given  by  Emerson 
as  "  the  moral  order  seen  through  the  medium  of  an 
individual  nature,"  with  the  addition  that  "men  of 
character  are  the  conscience  of  the  society  to  which 
they  belong."  But  character  has  its  negative  as  well 
as  its  positive  aspects.  While  we  speak  of  "  a  man 
of  character,"  using  the  term  as  the  embodiment  of 
the  virtues,  we  often  qualify  the  word  by  an  adjec- 
tive such  as  bad  character,  a  queer  character,  and, 
even  when  we  mean  an  odd  individual,  "  a  character." 
Occasionally  we  come  into  the  presence  of  a  man 
from  whose  personality  there  radiates  some  mystic 
influence  which  silences  and  quells  our  worst  selves 
— a  man  who  creates  an  atmosphere  in  which  nothing 
ignoble  or  ugly  dare  find  expression.  Then  we  rec- 
ognize what  character  is.  Mr.  Harold  Begbie  told 
me  that  when  he  spent  a  day  with  Mr.  John  Morley 
(for  a  chapter  in  his  Master  Workers)  they  sat  after 

26 


CHAEACTEE  27 

lunch  smoking  a  cigarette  over  a  cup  of  coffee.  They 
were  discussing  personality,  and  the  rarity  of  really 
great  personalities,  and  the  subtle  spell  they  exercise. 
"  Mr.  G.  (Mr.  Gladstone)  was  one,"  said  Mr.  Morley. 
"  We  are  sitting  here  at  our  ease,  not  wasting  time, 
but  spending  it  in  discussing  high  themes ;  but  if  the 
door  opened  and  Mr.  G.  came  into  the  room,  we 
should  put  down  our  cigarettes  and  sit  upright  in 
our  chairs  to  talk  to  him.  Why  we  should  do  so,  I 
do  not  exactly  know.  It  is  a  concession  wejnvolun- 
tarily  make  to  a  great  personality." 

There  is  an  older  story  that  every  one  knows,  of 
Charles  Lamb  and  some  of  his  friends  discussing 
what  they  would  do  if  any  great  historic  figure  came 
among  them.  If  Shakespeare  came  they  would  all 
bow  their  heads;  but  what,  some  one  asked,  would 
they  do  if  Jesus  Christ  came  into  the  room?  Charles 
Lamb  gave  the  answer :  "  We  should  go  down  on 
our  knees,"  he  said ;  "  and,  bending  low,  kiss  the  hem 
of  His  garment."  The  character  who  stands  supreme 
among  all  the  sons  of  men  who  have  trod  this  earth 
would,  Lamb  recognized,  command  the  homage  of 
even  that  group  of  convivial  Bohemians. 

Exalted  character  is  independent  of  wealth  or 
learning.  Simplicity  is  almost  invariably  an  element 
in  nobility  of  character.  Truth,  generosity,  courage, 
morality,  benevolence,  fortitude — these  are  the  im- 
perishable and  indispensable  traits  in  the  type  of 
character  which  wins  respect,  and  by  its  contagious 
influence  exalts  all  who  come  within  its  sway.  Suc- 
cess, wealth,  and  position — which,  properly  acquired, 
are  not  to  be  despised — give  men  power;  but  real 
character  is  not  something  a  man  has — it  is  some- 


28  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

thing  that  he  is.  And  its  presence  makes  a  man  rich 
in  things  that  money  cannot  buy,  or  success  com- 
mand, or  influence  secure  for  him. 

A  man's  greatest  inheritance  is  his  character. 
"  What,"  asks  Dr.  Fairbairn,  "  shall  a  parent  give  to 
his  son  ?  The  father  says,  a  fortune.  '  I  will  found  a 
family,  make  an  estate,  leave  an  inheritance  to  the 
boy  such  as  his  father  never  knew.'  Pray,  what  was 
the  father's  inheritance?  'My  father  left  me  noth- 
ing.' '  Nothing !  Didn't  he  leave  you  character  ?  ' 
Many  a  son  has  been  ruined  because  his  father  left 
him  a  fortune.  Who  shall  count  the  number  of  sons 
saved  because  the  father  left  a  character?  " 

Many  a  young  man's  life  is  spoiled  by  the  inher- 
itance of  prejudices  that  warp  his  judgment,  of 
blemishes  of  character  that  weaken  his  resistance  to 
evil,  and  of  feebleness  of  will  that  hampers  his  efforts 
to  rise  on  stepping-stones  of  his  dead  self.  Triumph 
over  such  inheritances  is  the  reward  of  moral  effort. 
Life  is  a  continuous  battle,  and  man  has  to  fight 
every  hour  of  his  life  for  his  moral  integrity,  and 
for  that  "  mellow  juice  of  life  "  which  we  call  char- 
acter. 

"  We  do  not  need,"  said  Theodore  Roosevelt,  "  men 
of  unsteady  brilliance  or  erratic  power — unbalanced 
men.  The  men  we  need  are  the  men  of  strong, 
earnest,  solid  character,  the  men  who  possess  the 
homely  virtues,  and  who,  to  those  virtues,  add  cour- 
age, rugged  honesty,  and  high  resolve." 

Another  noble  preacher  of  righteousness,  Bishop 
Phillips  Brooks,  warned  us  against  the  blustering 
goodness  that  often  cloaks  hypocrisy,  and  he  re- 
marked that  "  the  noisy  waves  are  failures,  but  the 


CHAEACTEB  29 

great  silent  tide  is  a  success."  Character  like  Lord 
Roberts',  does  not  advertise :  it  influences  by  its  quiet 
persuasiveness. 

Without  moral  courage  high  character  is  impos- 
sible. By  moral  courage  I  do  not  mean  ostentatious 
heroics,  but  the  quieter  heroisms  that  court  no  pub- 
licity. In  The  Lady  of  the  Decoration  there  is  a 
story  of  a  lady  missionary  who,  after  long  years  of 
service  in  Japan,  receives  her  furlough,  and  with 
exultant  heart  sails  for  home.  On  the  voyage  she 
calls  at  the  Leper  island,  to  make  a  report  for  her 
society.  A  few  days  after  reaching  home  and  greet- 
ing her  friends,  she  notices  a  grey  patch  on  her  hand. 
It  is  the  first  and  terrible  symptom  of  leprosy.  She 
knows  only  too  well  that  there  is  no  cure.  With  the 
courage  that  reveals  her  character,  she  says  farewell 
to  her  friends  and  sails,  without  a  whine,  for  the 
Leper  island,  to  spend  her  life  with  its  drear  victims. 

Bret  Harte,  in  his  inimitable  short  stories  of  the 
Forty-Niners,  shows  us  the  noble  traits  of  character 
that  often  cropped  out  from  the  rude,  rough  ad- 
venturers in  the  gold  camps.  This  nobility  of  soul 
is  common  enough  among  the  pioneers  of  empire 
who  build  the  roads  and  bridge  the  fords  in  the  waste 
places  of  the  earth. 


'  Who  are  the  noble  of  the  earth, 
The  true  aristocrats, 
Who  need  not  bow  their  heads  to  kings, 
Nor  doff  to  lords  their  hats? 
Who  are  they  but  the  men  of  toil, 
Who  cleave  the  forests  down, 
And  plant  among  the  wilderness, 
The  hamlet  and  the  town? 


30  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

These  claim  no  god  of  chivalry, 
And  scorn  the  knighting  rod. 
Their  coats  of  arms  are  noble  deeds, 
Their  peerage  is  from  God." 

In  the  final  analysis  it  is  the  character  of  its 
common  people  that  exalts  a  nation:  and  the  soli- 
darity of  the  social  order  rests  on  the  moral  quality 
of  the  men  and  women  who  do  the  world's  work  in 
obscurity.  The  character  of  the  humblest  citizen  is 
thus  a  vital  factor  in  the  moral  health  of  the  entire 
community. 

Attainment  of  character  depends  on  moral  muscle. 
A  young  man  is  wise  to  pull  himself  up  periodically 
and  subject  himself  to  self-examination. 

"What  sin  have  I  done?  What  left  undone? 
Examine  all  from  first  to  last: 
What  is  evil — condemn; 
What  is  good — rejoice  in." 

Self-examination  in  a  morbid  introspective  spirit  is 
to  be  deprecated;  but  an  occasional  honest  stock- 
taking of  one's  moral  values  is  a  healthy  exercise  in 
character-building.  As  a  youth  grows  from  boy- 
hood to  manhood,  he  should  acquire,  unconsciously, 
certain  powers  of  automatic  goodness.  It  should, 
for  example,  need  no  exercise  of  will-power  to  be 
honest,  because  dishonesty  should  be  something  he 
never  thinks  possible;  it  should  be  a  thing  outside 
his  radius.  The  habit  of  resisting  common  tempta- 
tions should  become  so  fixed  and  automatic  that  re- 
sistance calls  for  no  exercise  of  will-power.  He 
should  develop  in  himself  reserves  of  resistance 
to  indolence,  prejudice,  vanity,  censoriousness, 


CHABACTER  31 

so  that  the  virtues  correcting  and  negativing 
these  vices  come  into  operation  without  conscious 
effort.  So  character  is  created,  and  stored  as  in  a 
moral  reservoir.  The  will  to  high  moral  resolution 
becomes  a  bank-balance  to  be  drawn  upon  at  call. 
If,  on  self-examination,  a  young  man  finds  that  he 
has  still  to  grit  his  teeth  and  steel  his  nerve  to  over- 
come some  every-day  temptation,  he  may  well  tremble 
for  his  foothold  on  the  rocks  of  moral  integrity.  Sam 
Jones,  the  evangelist,  used  to  say  that  the  proper  way 
to  start  a  religious  revival  was  to  take  a  piece  of 
chalk,  draw  a  ring  round  oneself,  and  then  pray: 
"  Lord,  revive  Thy  work,  and  begin  with  the  fellow 
in  this  ring." 

Character  is  a  fruitage  of  slow  growth  and  cease- 
less vigilance.  Declension  in  character  may  begin 
slowly,  but  the  pace  accelerates  so  that  many  a  man 
finds  himself  "  down  and  out  "  before  he  realizes  that 
his  morale  has  even  begun  to  deteriorate.  The  legend 
persists  that  when  Leonardo  Da  Vinci  painted  his 
Christ  in  "  The  Last  Supper,"  at  Milan,  he  employed 
as  his  model  a  chorister  from  the  cathedral,  whom 
he  had  selected  for  the  moral  beauty  reflected  in  his 
face ;  twenty-five  years  later  Leonardo  found  a  model 
for  his  Judas  in  a  ragged  and  dissolute  wretch  on  the 
Beggars'  Staircase  in  Rome.  As  he  was  sitting  for 
Judas,  the  model  told  Leonardo  that  he  had  been  the 
model  for  his  Christ. 

Weakness  of  will-power  is  a  certain  source  of  a 
desolated  character.  Flabby,  invertebrate  young  men 
are  almost  invariably  moral  failures.  The  power  to 
say  "  Yes  "  and  mean  it,  or  "  No  "  and  stick  to  it, 
makes  all  the  difference  to  character.  Resistance  and 


32  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

persistence  are  primary  qualities  in  strong  manhood. 
During  the  severe  and  crucial  fighting  in  July,  1918, 
on  the  Western  Front,  a  message  was  brought  to 
Marshal  Foch  that  the  Germans  were  pressing  so 
hard  on  one  sector  that  the  allied  troops  could  not 
hold  on.  The  Generalissimo's  counsel  was  a  strange 
one :  "  I  cannot  hold  on :  very  well.  Then  I  must 
attack."  He  attacked,  and  began  the  sequence  of 
victories  that  broke  the  German  army.  In  moral 
spheres,  as  well  as  on  the  battle-field  and  in  the  box- 
ing-ring, attack  is  the  best  defence.  If  a  young  man 
is  tempted  to  alcohol,  his  safety  lies,  not  in  mere  de- 
fence, but  in  attacking.  Let  him  vow  personal  ab- 
stinence from  strong  liquor,  and  take  the  field  as  a 
Temperance  worker.  He  lifts  his  battle  from  the 
valley  to  the  uplands,  and  becomes  more  than  con- 
queror. 

At  the  roots  of  nearly  all  high  character  are 
Christian  faith  and  impulse.  Not  for  a  moment  do 
I  suggest  that  agnosticism,  and  even  atheism,  have 
not  produced  men  of  splendid  moral  quality.  Charles 
Bradlaugh  was  a  worthy  citizen  and  an  unimpeach- 
able character.  Voltaire,  the  French  Free-thinker, 
was  a  chivalrous  champion  of  right ;  and  one  might 
catalogue  a  long  list  of  names  of  men  who  neglected 
the  altar,  but  whose  upright  bearing  has  put  to  shame 
the  lives  of  professing  Christians  whose  conduct  has 
not  adorned  their  doctrine.  But  the  very  virtues 
these  confessed  opponents  of  Christianity  manifested 
were  in  their  essence  Christian  virtues,  derived,  it 
may  be,  from  Christian  parents  who  gave  them  their 
initial  velocity  towards  goodness.  When,  however, 
this  admission  has  been  honestly  made,  one  may  as- 


CHAEACTEE  33 

sert  with  assurance  that  the  Christian  virtues  are  the 
stable  foundations  of  nearly  all  noble  character.  A 
firm  hold  on  Christian  principle  helps  a  man  to  live 
that  life  "  for  the  highest  possible  purposes,  and  to 
be  absolutely  unselfish  in  attaining  it,"  which  Dr. 
Clifford  declares  to  be  the  secret  of  power,  happiness, 
and  youthfulness. 

The  career  of  Sir  Harry  Lauder  is  a  modern 
romance  of  character.  I  prefer  to  take  my  examples 
from  men  of  our  own  time.  We  admire  the  native 
genius  of  the  Scottish  pit-boy,  whose  clean,  simple, 
homely  songs  move  our  hearts;  but  what  we  most 
admire  in  Harry  Lauder  is  the  simple  rugged 
grandeur  of  character  with  which  he  has  clung  to  the 
sober  virtues  derived  from  his  pious  upbringing.  In 
the  midst  of  a  life  exposed  to  such  sharp  temptations 
as  the  music-hall  stage,  Harry  Lauder  has  never 
concealed  his  love  of  sobriety,  his  regard  for  Sunday, 
his  belief  in  thrift,  and  his  delight  in  clean  living  and 
hearty  laughter.  Like  St.  Paul,  Sir  Harry  Lauder 
can  say :  "I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ."  He  has  lived  it  on  the  boards  of  the  music- 
hall  stage. 


IV 
JESUS  AS  HERO 

PROFESSOR  HENRY  DRUMMOND  is 
credited  with  saying  that  there  is  a  religion 
that  is  natural  to  a  young  man,  and  another 
religion  natural  to  his  maiden  aunt;  and  if  you  find 
a  young  man  professing  the  religion  of  his  maiden 
aunt,  he  is  guilty  of  cant.  After  fifteen  years'  work 
among  boys,  I  can  understand  what  Professor 
Drummond  meant.  There  are  aspects  of  Christianity 
that  appeal  to  the  heart  and  soul  of  a  young  man; 
but  there  are  other  aspects  that  leave  him  quite  un- 
moved. I  have  never  found  a  dogmatic  presenta- 
tion of  Christianity  a  really  effective  approach  to 
young  life;  nor  have  I  ever  found  young  men  un- 
responsive to  the  personality  of  Jesus.  Christ's  call 
is  a  young  man's  call  to  a  life  of  splendid  adventure 
for  all  that  is  right  and  noble.  The  irresistible 
glamour  of  Christ's  personality  appeals  to  the  ideal- 
ism of  youth.  He  is,  indeed,  the  vision  splendid. 

A  Japanese  General,  who  had  just  read  the  New 
Testament  for  the  first  time,  was  asked  what  char- 
acteristic of  Jesus  he  most  admired.  Without  hesi- 
tation he  answered :  "  His  wonderful  courage." 
Perhaps  we  think  too  little  of  the  heroism  of  Jesus. 
If  we  could  take  up  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark,  and, 
banishing  from  mind  and  memory  all  that  we  have 

34 


JESUS  AS  HERO  36 

read  and  heard  of,  and  traditionally  associated  with 
Jesus,  and  read  the  Gospel  right  through  at  a  sitting 
(it  would  take  about  an  hour)  as  if  it  were  the 
biography  of  a  mere  man,  we  should  perhaps  close 
the  book  and  say  at  once  that  Jesus  was  a  hero 
worthy  of  devotion  for  His  mere  heroism — a  hero 
in  every  sense  of  the  word,  for  His  unflinching  cour- 
age, His  spotless  character,  His  gentle  spirit,  His 
gracious  nature,  His  reluctance  to  inflict  pain,  His 
eagerness  to  help  the  weak,  His  yearning  to  comfort 
the  sorrowing,  and  His  dignified  grandeur  of  bearing 
alike  in  triumph  and  adversity.  We  should  end  by 
giving  Him  a  place — and  the  place  of  highest  honor 
— in  the  gallery  of  all  heroes. 

The  Founder  of  the  Christian  religion  was  young. 
Traditional  art,  perhaps,  has  made  us  lose  the  thrill 
of  Christ's  youthfulness.  He  died  when  the  ordinary 
man  of  to-day  is  just  getting  into  his  stride.  He 
gathered  His  disciples,  exercised  His  wonderful 
ministry,  preached  His  great  Evangel  and  died  on 
Calvary,  in  early  manhood.  It  must  stir  the  heart  of 
youth  to  realize  that  the  conquering  Galilean  peasant 
who  turned  the  world  upside  down  had  finished  His 
work  by  the  age  of  thirty-three.  Even  Alexander's 
mighty  military  exploits — after  which  the  East 
"  plunged  in  thought  again  " — are  insignificant  com- 
pared with  the  world  conquests  of  the  youthful 
Prince  of  Peace.  Rev.  C.  Silvester  Home,  who 
made  Jesus  so  real  a  hero  to  thousands  of  young  men 
in  London,  once  drew  a  picture  of  the  appearance  of 
our  Lord  during  His  earthly  ministry. 

"  Conceive,"  said  Mr.  Silvester  Home,  "  a  strong 
and  strenuous  young  Jewish  workman,  alive  to  all 


36  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

the  delights  of  nature,  and  with  the  crowning  joy 
of  a  pure  heart  and  a  clear  conscience,  and  an  in- 
vigorating consciousness  of  God;  conceive  a  massive 
head  and  rugged  face  strongly  marked  with  thought 
and  sympathy,  but  with  the  mystic  light  of  moral 
victory  always  there;  conceive  dark,  keen,  flashing 
eyes  that  can  speak  equally  easily  inspiration  or 
indignation :  and  you  have  the  Figure  that  '  wanders 
through  my  dreams/  the  *  Happy  Warrior '  behind 
Whom  I  hope  to  fight  till  I  die." 

Jesus  was  a  lover  of  the  open  air.  We  have  no 
record  that  He  ever  slept  in  a  walled  city ;  but  there 
is  much  in  the  Gospels  to  suggest  that  He  and  His 
disciples  camped  out  beneath  the  olive-trees  under 
the  shining  eyes  of  the  Syrian  stars.  He  loved  the 
fields,  the  birds,  and  the  flowers,  the  fair  green  hills 
that  girdle  quiet  Nazareth  and  the  stormy  waters  of 
the  Lake  of  Galilee.  He  was  a  lover  of  His  kind,  a 
sociable  Man  who  rejoiced  in  human  companionship. 
Conventionalism  was  foreign  to  His  nature.  How 
He  shocked  the  formalists  of  His  time  by  His  dis- 
regard of  the  niceties  of  religious  externals!  That 
He  had  a  sense  of  humor  we  see  in  His  conversation 
with  the  Syro-Phoenician  woman.  He  showed  that 
He  preferred  the  Bohemian  ways  of  publicans  and 
sinners  to  the  suburban  pharisaism  of  the  Scribes. 
And,  preeminently,  He  was  a  lover  of  little  children. 
In  fact,  Jesus  was,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  a 
man's  man.  To  clothe  Him  in  austerities  and  to 
environ  Him  with  severity,  is  to  disguise  and  dis- 
figure His  winsome  humanness. 

I  like  to  think  of  Jesus  as  the  very  best  journey- 
man carpenter  in  all  Syria.  Rev.  J.  G.  Stevenson, 


JESUS  AS  HEEO  37 

in  The  Christ  of  the  Children,  says  Jesus  must  have 
been  a  good  workman,  or  we  should  have  heard  of 
His  enemies  complaining  that  He  made  them  bad 
tables  and  doors  and  wooden  ploughs.  I  like  to 
think  of  Him  climbing  the  hill-slopes  with  the  firm 
steps  of  a  mountaineer,  and  striding  the  fields  with 
the  zest  of  youth -rejoicing  in  its  strength.  Nothing 
in  the  Gospels  suggests  any  effeminacy  in  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  though  some  of  the  great  Master  painters 
have  sentimentalized  His  face  and  figure. 

Jesus  came  to  offer  us  a  full-orbed  life,  and  He 
lived  one  in  the  short  years  of  His  earthly  ministry. 
Far  too  much  emphasis  has  been  laid  upon  the  meek- 
ness and  gentleness  of  Jesus.  This  explains  the 
anaemic  hue  of  some  presentations  of  Christianity. 
Softness  was  not  a  characteristic  of  Jesus  Himself. 
Nietzsche's  philosophy,  "  Be  hard,"  was  an  inevitable 
counterblast  to  sentimentalized  Christianity.  Jesus 
was  gentle  and  hard,  meek  and  assertive,  just  as 
occasion  demanded.  He  forgave  sinners  freely,  but 
lashed  hypocrisy  mercilessly.  Injustice,  tyranny, 
cowardice,  stirred  Him  to  a  white  heat  of  righteous 
and  scornful  indignation ;  but  pain,  sorrow,  and  weak- 
ness moved  Him  to  infinite  compassion.  No  knight 
of  chivalry  was  ever  so  chivalrous  as  the  Son  of 
Man.  The  majesty  of  Jesus  leaps  out  at  us,  as  Dr. 
Fosdick  says,  when  we  compare  the  moral  grandeur 
of  Jesus  with  the  manufactured  perfection  of  Tenny- 
son's King  Arthur. 

As  a  young  man's  Hero,  Jesus  stands  flawless. 
But  He  is  more  than  a  hero — He  is  a  Guide.  John 
Stuart  Mill,  who  was  not  a  professing  Christian,  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  could  imagine  no  better 


38  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

guide  to  conduct  than  that  a  man  should,  in  every- 
thing he  says  and  does,  seek  so  to  act  and  so  to  speak 
that  his  action  and  speech  would  command  the 
approval  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Jesus  is  the  guide 
to  God—"  The  Way  and  the  Life."  His  own  claim 
has  no  ambiguity.  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath 
seen  the  Father,"  He  said.  This  means  that  he  that 
hath  seen  in  Jesus  the  champion  of  justice,  the  im- 
placable foe  of  tyranny,  the  hater  of  evil,  the  healer 
of  pain,  the  consoler  of  the  sorrowful,  and  the  giver 
of  strength  to  the  weak,  has  seen  the  personal 
characteristics  of  God  Himself.  We  can  only  realize 
with  our  finite  mind  what  the  Infinite  God  is,  by 
giving  Him,  to  the  wth  degree,  all  the  very  noblest 
attributes  that  have  ever  been  made  manifest  in  man. 
The  Creator  must  surpass  the  highest  qualities  with 
which  He  has  endowed  His  creatures.  Let  a  young 
man  imagine  a  combination  of  the  finest  elements  of 
all  the  great  human  heroes,  and  then  think  of  God  as 
all  that  and  even  more,  and  he  has  a  rudimentary 
conception  of  God  which  will  appeal  to  his  worship, 
his  loyalty  and  his  love. 

Rank  Jesus  first  in  the  gallery  of  heroes;  make 
Him  Guide,  Counsellor,  and  Friend,  note  and  copy 
His  attitude  of  worship  to  God,  His  devotion  to  the 
service  of  man;  catch  His  spirit,  learn  His  sweet 
accents — and  a  young  man  will  find  that  he  has  made 
Jesus  Christ  Lord  of  his  life  and  Captain  of  his 
salvation.  A  young  man  who  has  thus  appropriated 
Jesus  Christ  and  given  Him  rule  over  him,  need  have 
no  difficulty  about  creeds.  Dr.  James  Denney  de- 
clared that  the  day  of  elaborate  creeds  is  over,  and 
that  he  would  be  content  with  this :  "  I  believe  in  God 


JESUS  AS  HERO  39 

through  Jesus  Christ,  His  only  Son,  our  Lord  and 
Saviour."  Here  is  a  confession  that  a  young  man 
may  make — 

"  So  far  as  I  know  my  own  heart,  I  am  convinced 
of  two  things — that  I  need  a  Saviour,  and  that  Christ 
is  just  the  Saviour  I  need.  I  therefore  do,  with  all 
my  heart,  accept  Him,  and  resolve  to  be  henceforth 
His  true  disciple  and  servant  in  all  sincerity." 

As  Hero,  Guide,  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ  then 
makes  a  threefold  appeal  to  the  mind,  the  will,  and  the 
heart  of  (youth.  For  Jesus  is  far  more  than  a  guide 
and  a  hero.  His  Saviourhood,  the  redemptive  power 
He  exercises  through  His  life  and  His  Cross,  sepa- 
rates Him  from  all  other  heroes  and  guides.  There 
is  the  Jesus  of  history,  who  trod  this  earth  for  a 
little  while  as  a  ministering  and  suffering  Servant  of 
God  and  man;  and  there  is  the  Christ  of  experience, 
who  persists  through  all  time  in  the  hearts  and  souls 
of  His  followers — the  Christ  eternal,  who  dwells  in 
the  hearts  of  those  who  love  Him,  fights  beside  us  in 
our  wrestle  with  temptation,  sustains  in  adversity, 
enriches  our  joys  and  softens  our  sorrows.  This 
richer,  deeper  experience  of  Christ  is,  in  a  normal 
young  man's  life,  a  growth  through  hero-worship 
and  guidance.  It  cannot  be  forced,  and  it  ought 
not  to  be  simulated. 


V 
RELIGION  IN  ACTION 

DONALD  HANKEY  said  that  a  Christian  is 
a  man  who  is  prepared  to  bet  his  life  that 
there  is  a  God.  Paul  Sabatier  said  that 
"  to  be  a  Christian  is  to  live  over  within  ourselves 
the  inner  spiritual  life  of  Christ;  and,  by  the  union 
of  our  life  with  His,  to  feel  in  ourselves  the  presence 
of  a  Father  and  the  reality  of  our  filial  relation  to 
Him,  just  as  Christ  felt  in  Himself  the  Father's 
presence  and  His  filial  relation  to  Him."  A  learned 
Bishop  who  defined  Christianity  as  "  Turn  to  the 
right  and  keep  straight  on,"  gave  a  simple  working 
formula  which  a  young  man  can  appreciate. 

Religion  often  suffers  sadly  from  its  expositors. 
A  soldier  writing  home  from  the  front  said :  "  If  an 
officer  does  not  swear,  or  smoke,  or  drink,  or  chew, 
or  play  cards,  or  go  to  the  theatre,  or  attend  the 
company  dances,  we  call  him  a  Christian.  If  he  is 
brave,  always  just,  considerate  of  his  men,  shares 
their  dangers  and  their  hardships  with  them,  and 
looks  after  their  provisioning  and  their  comfort,  we 
call  him  a  good  officer."  Obviously  Christianity 
had  been  presented  to  this  soldier  as  a  system  of 
negations,  or  he  would  have  seen  that  the  positive 
qualities  which  he  thought  constitute  a  good  officer 
are  exactly  the  characteristics  of  a  sound  Christian. 

40 


EELIGION  IN  ACTION  41 

Christianity  is  not  a  repressive  code  of  restrictions 
— a  call  to  forego  so  many  of  those  things  which 
make  life  attractive  to  youth.  "  Entering  the  service 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  not  subjection,"  says  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott,  "  it  is  emancipation.  Jesus  told  His  disciples 
that  '  out  of  the  heart  of  man  proceed  evil  thoughts, 
fornications,  thefts,  murders,  adulteries.'  Therefore 
they  cannot  be  cured  by  prohibitions  from  without: 
they  can  be  cured  only  by  a  new  and  Divine  life 
inspired  within."  Jesus  broke  away  from  the  "  Thou 
shalt  nots "  of  Judaism  and  gave  us  the  "  Blessed 
are  theys."  His  offer  is  of  life  more  abundant ;  a  life 
of  clean  joys,  if  of  stern  duties;  of  abiding  satisfac- 
tions if  of  moral  discipline.  Jesus  was  no  ascetic, 
and  He  does  not  call  His  followers  to  asceticism.  He 
calls  us  to  be  conquerors  over  our  worst  selves,  and 
gives  us  the  dynamic  power  for  the  conquest.  He 
wants  us  to  be  robust  men,  with  healthy  bodies,  clean 
minds  and  bright  spirits.  That  is  the  appeal  He 
makes  to  youth. 

Robert  Browning's  gospel  was  a  working  gospel, 
and  he  got  it  from  Christ — 

"It's  wiser  being  good  than  bad; 

It's  safer  being  meek  than  fierce; 
It's  fitter  being  sane  than  mad. 

My  own  hope  is,  a  sun  will  pierce 
The  thickest  cloud  earth  ever  stretched; 

That  after  Last  returns  the  First, 
Though  a  wide  compass  round  be  fetched; 

That  what  began  best  can't  end  worst, 

Nor  what  God  blessed  once  prove  accurst." 

The  war  has  "  done  for  atheism,"  it  has  been  said. 
Herbert  Spencer's  admission  of  a  "  first  great  cause," 


42  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

and  Thomas  Huxley's  confession  that  he  found 
Intelligence  behind  the  cosmic  order,  had  perhaps 
shattered  the  glib  atheism  of  the  materialistic  school 
of  science.  But  if  atheism  was  not  current,  hazy 
ideas  of  God  were  common  among  our  soldiers. 
Chaplains  found  few  men  doubting  the  existence  of 
God;  but  they  found  thousands  of  men  with  sadly 
confused  conceptions  of  God  and  His  relations  with 
the  Universe.  An  English  schoolboy  has  recently 
published  a  thoughtful  little  book  in  which  he  avows 
that  schoolboys  crave  for  a  personal  God.  They 
want  to  "  get  at  God."  Mr.  II.  G.  Wells  makes  the 
hero  in  Joan  and  Peter  seek  an  interview  with  God. 
He  is  wounded  and  delirious,  and  he  complains  that 
the  very  men  who  set  themselves  to  show  the  way 
to  God  do  not  help  him  to  find  Him.  This  prevailing 
confusion  and  thick  haziness  about  God  is  a  chal- 
lenge to  Christian  teachers  and  thinkers. 

The  need  a  young  man  feels  is  not  for  a  formulated 
creed,  but  for  a  God  with  whom  he  can  have  experi- 
ence and  make  real  contact.  Formulas  do  not  help 
him.  "  Honest  hearts,"  says  George  Eliot,  "  are 
bound  to  accept  no  formula  which  their  whole  souls 
and  intellects,  as  well  as  their  emotions,  do  not 
embrace  with  entire  assurance."  The  Christianity 
that  wins  a  young  man's  allegiance  points  him  to  a 
life,  not  to  a  creed.  For  true  religion  is  nine-tenths 
conduct — it  is  character  vitalized  by  a  spiritual 
principle. 

In  sober  truth  a  Christian  is  the  only  genuine 
bon  vvuant — the  only  good  liver.  By  substituting 
freedom  for  license,  religion  establishes  the  principle 
that  makes  men  free.  "  The  very  limitations  of  the 


RELIGION  IN  ACTION  43 

Christian  life,"  says  Professor  Johnston  Ross,  "  are 
every  one  of  them  safeguards  of  liberty."  The  pro- 
hibitions of  Jesus  are  amazingly  few  in  number.  His 
commands  are  affirmative,  His  injunctions  are 
promises.  "  People,"  said  Henry  Drummond,  "  talk 
of  giving  up  when  they  become  Christians,  as  if  they 
were  to  be  the  losers;  but  the  promise  is  of  added 
riches."  Let  no  one  nurse  the  delusion  that  license 
is  freedom.  It  is  the  exact  opposite — it  is  slavery. 
Is  the  libertine  free  ?  Is  the  drunkard  free  ?  Neither 
is  free.  He  is  the  slave  of  his  passion  and  his  ap- 
petite. When  Goethe  said  that  life  begins  with  self- 
renunciation,  he  meant  the  renunciation  of  those 
things  that  enthral  men  and  make  them  bond-slaves 
to  their  lower  selves.  This  is  the  heart  of  the  mes- 
sage of  Faust.  As  Dr.  W.  B.  Selbie  says:  "A 
Christianity  that  puts  a  mask  on  a  man,  makes  his 
movements  awkward  and  fetters  his  freedom,  is  as 
false  as  it  is  unnatural.  The  Christian  lives  as  no 
other  man  can  live,  because  his  life  is  the  most  fruit- 
ful in  results,  the  broadest  in  outlook  and  the  most 
full  of  joy." 

"  The  Lord  let  the  house  of  a  brute  to  the  soul  of  a  man. 
And  the  man  said,  'Am  I  your  debtor? ' 
1  Not  yet/  said  the  Lord,  '  but  make  it  as  clean  as  you  can. 
And  then  I  will  let  you  a  better.' " 

Principal  John  Caird,  in  that  sermon  on  "  Religion 
in  Common  Life,"  which  Dean  Stanley  described  as 
"  the  best  single  sermon  in  the  language,"  affirms 
that  "  Religion  is  mainly  and  chiefly  the  glorifying 
God  amid  the  duties  and  trials  of  the  world — the 


44  THE  STRATEGY  OP  LIFE 

guiding  our  course  amid  the  adverse  winds  and  cur- 
rents of  temptation  by  the  starlight  of  duty  and  the 
compass  of  Divine  truth;  the  bearing  us  manfully, 
courageously,  wisely,  for  the  honor  of  Christ  our 
great  Leader  in  the  conflict  of  life.  Away,  then,  with 
the  notion  that  ministers  and  devotees  may  be  re- 
ligious, but  that  a  religious  and  holy  life  is  impracti- 
cable in  the  rough  and  busy  world.  Nay,  rather,  be- 
lieve me,  that,  in  the  proper  sense,  is  the  peculiar  and 
appropriate  field  for  religion — the  place  in  which  to 
prove  that  piety  is  not  a  dream  of  Sundays  and  soli- 
tary hours — that  it  can  bear  the  light  of  days ;  that  it 
can  wear  well  amid  the  rough  jostlings,  the  hard 
struggles,  the  coarse  contacts  of  common  life;  the 
place,  in  one  word,  to  prove  how  possible  it  is  for  a 
man  to  be  at  once  ( not  slothful  in  business,'  and 
'  fervent  in  spirit,  serving  the  Lord/  "  Religion  con- 
sists, Dr.  Caird  adds,  not  so  much  in  doing  spiritual 
or  sacred  acts  as  in  doing  secular  acts  from  a  sacred 
or  spiritual  motive. 

Religion,  says  Dr.  R.  W.  Mackenna,  is  not  some- 
thing to  be  clutched  at  with  despairing  hands,  like 
a  piece  of  flotsam,  when  the  waters  of  affliction  tend 
to  overwhelm  one ;  but  an  attitude  of  mind,  an  orien- 
tation of  soul,  to  be  cultivated  sedulously  so  that  a 
man  may  walk  with  unbowed  head  through  all  the 
storms  of  life,  stayed  by  a  glad  confidence  in  the 
eternal  justice  and  enduring  love  of  God. 

Heart,  mind  and  will  must  all  engage  in  the  Chris- 
tian life.  Dr.  James  Stalker  sees  an  appeal  to  each 
in  turn  in  Christ's  thrice-asked  question  to  Peter: 
*' Lovest  thou  Me?"  In  one  of  his  most  beautiful 
poems,  Dr.  George  Matheson  sees  in  heart,  mind  and 


KELIGION  IN  ACTION  46 

will  the  three  doors  through  which  we  may  enter: 
the  Temple  of  God — 

"  Three  doors  there  are  in  the  temple 

Where  men  go  up  to  pray, 
And  they  that  wait  at  the  outer  gate 
May  enter  by  either  way. 

There  are  some  that  pray  by  ASKING; 

They  lie  on  the  Master's  breast, 
And  shunning  the  strife  of  the  lower  life, 

They  utter  their  cry  for  rest. 

There  are  some  that  pray  by  SEEKING; 

They  doubt  where  their  reason  fails, 
But  their  minds'  despair  is  the  ancient  prayer 

To  touch  the  print  of  the  nails. 

There  are  some  that  pray  by  KNOCKING  ; 

They  put  their  strength  to  the  wheel, 
For  they  have  not  time  for  thoughts  sublime, 

They  can  only  act  what  they  feel. 

Father,  give  each  his  answer — 

Each  in  his  kindred  way, 
Adapt  Thy  light  to  his  form  of  night, 

And  grant  him  his  needed  day." 

A  layman  who  ventures  to  write  on  Prayer  an3 
its  place  in  Christian  life,  hesitates  lest  he  should  be 
rushing  in  "  where  angels  fear  to  tread."  Christianity 
without  prayer — without  direct  communion  of  the 
soul  with  the  Over-soul — is  unthinkable.  "  Our  secret 
thoughts  are  the  prayers  God  hears,"  said  Clement  of 
Alexandria ;  but  ordered  prayer  is  the  supreme  source 
of  the  moral  power  of  the  Christian  soul.  I  should 


46  THE  STKATEGY  OF  LIFE 

hate  to  recommend  prayer  as  a  mere  act  of  mental 
discipline  and  for  the  sake  of  its  salutary  reflex  in- 
fluences ;  but  that  aspect  of  prayer  cannot  be  ignored. 
One  of  the  greatest  authorities  on  mental  diseases, 
Dr.  Bulkeley  Hyslop,  addressing  a  gathering  of 
doctors,  declared  that  as  an  alienist  of  long  experi- 
ence he  was  satisfied  that  one  of  the  surest  prevent- 
ives of  diseases  of  the  mind  was  the  simple  habit  of 
daily  prayer.  George  Meredith  says  that  "  who  rises 
from  prayer  a  better  man,  his  prayer  is  answered." 
But  to  expect  only  reflex  influences — such  as  Dr. 
Hyslop  and  George  Meredith  indicate  —  from  our 
prayers  is  to  put  "  false  limits  of  our  own  "  upon  the 
power  of  prayer.  We  pray  ourselves  into  heaven, 
said  Bishop  Montgomery.  In  mysterious  ways,  by 
strange,  intangible  telepathies,  prayer  releases  forces 
incalculable  in  their  impetus.  "  More  things  are 
wrought  by  prayer  than  this  world  dreams  of." 
Through  prayer  the  human  soul  keeps  in  tune  with 
the  Infinite  and  taps  reservoirs  of  spiritual  uplifting 
that  are  inexhaustible  and  unfailing. 

Laborare  est  orare — to  labor  is  to  pray — says  a 
Latin  pun.  It  is  equally  true  that  to  pray  is  to 
labor.  A  prayer  that  costs  no  effort  yields  no  re- 
ward. "  Don't  be  in  a  hurry,"  says  William  Law  in 
his  Serious  Call,  "  when  you  kneel  down ;  wait,  and 
shut  your  eyes  and  open  the  eyes  of  the  soul  and 
look  up,  and  don't  begin  until  you  have  fairly  got  .a 
hold  with  your  eyes  of  Him  and  of  the  place  to  which 
you  direct  your  prayers.  You  will  pray  without 
effort  then."  Prayer  is  an  act  of  spiritual  energy 
and  of  mental  concentration. 

Some  years  ago,  Professor  Walter  Rauschenbusch 


EELIGION  IN  ACTION  47 

wrote,  at  the  request  of  the  headmaster  of  a  boys' 
school  in  America,  a  prayer  which  I  make  bold  to 
quote  as  a  model  prayer  for  young  men : 

Our  Father,  we  thank  Thee  for  this  day,  for  its 
work  and  its  pleasure,  for  the  zest  of  our  youth  and 
the  joy  of  living.  May  no  mean  word  or  foul  act 
cloud  our  satisfaction  or  humble  our  pride  when  this 
day  is  done. 

Grant  that  we  may  do  our  day's  work  with  a  will- 
ing heart,  looking  forward  to  the  larger  tasks  of  our 
life  in  the  days  to  come;  and  may  we  go  to  meet  the 
future  years  with  a  trained  body  and  mind,  well  able 
to  do  a  man's  work. 

May  no  idleness  or  love  of  easy  ways,  no  hidden 
vice  or  flaw  of  character,  weaken  our  youth;  lest 
when  we  strain  to  run  the  race  of  life,  ive  be  forced 
to  drop  out  before  the  goal  is  reached. 

Make  its  loyal  to  our  friends,  our  team-mates,  our 
school  and  our  teachers,  and  lovingly  loyal  to  our 
parents  and  the  dear  folks  at  home.  Save  us  from 
bringing  to  shame  the  hope  and  pride  with  which 
they  think  of  us. 

Give  us  a  brave  heart  to  say  what  is  true  and  do 
what  is  right,  even  to  our  own  hurt,  following  in  the 
footsteps  of  the  great  Captain  of  our  life,  Jesus 
Christ,  in  whose  name  we  make  our  prayer.  Amen. 

For  the  ideals  of  character  in  a  follower  of  Jesus 
Christ,  for  a  formula  of  Christianity  in  action,  I 
quote  the  words  of  St.  Peter: — 

"Add  to  your  faith  courage;  and  to  courage 
knowledge;  and  to  knowledge  self-control;  and  to 
self-control  patience;  and  to  patience  godliness;  and 


48  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

to  godliness  brotherly-kindness;   and  to  brotherly- 
kindness  love." 

If  these  qualities  are  in  us  and  abound  in  us,  we 
know  Jesus  Christ.  If  they  are  not  in  us,  we  do  not 
know  Jesus  Christ.  For  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  are 
the  acid  test  of  Christian  reality. 


VI 

A  MAN'S  MAN 

A  CHAPLAIN,  who  shared  with  his  men  the 
hardships  of  the  battle-fields,  gave  it  to  me 
as  his  opinion  that  war  had  restored  some 
long-concealed  virtues  that  were  in  danger  of  being 
lost  in  a  man  engaged  in  competitive  industry.  We 
have,  he  said,  been  over-emphasizing  just  those 
gentler  virtues  in  men  that  women  like,  and  forgetting 
to  stress  those  rougher  virtues  that  make  a  man  "  a 
man's  man."  The  chaplain  ran  over  some  of  the 
resuscitated  virtues  bred  in  the  rough  and  tumble  of 
soldiering.  One  unwritten  law  among  soldiers  is 
that  you  must  not  let  down  a  pal ;  that  his  ration  is 
a  sacred  thing;  that  if  you  are  taking  supplies  to  the 
front  line,  those  supplies  must  get  there  punctually 
at  whatever  cost  to  yourself.  They  are  elementary 
principles,  no  doubt — principles  that  primitive  man 
discovered  and  practised;  but  they  have  been  over- 
laid by  the  growth  of  gentler  virtues  and  softer 
manners. 

What,  then,  do  we  mean  by  "  a  man's  man  "  ?  In 
the  very  forefront  men  prefer  men  of  action  to  men 
of  mere  thought — men  of  robust  and  virile  char- 
acter— 

"  who  are  neither  children  nor  gods 
But  men  in  a  world  of  men." 
49 


60  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

One  explanation  of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's 
strangle-hold  on  his  age,  is  his  insistence  in  demand- 
ing from  men  acts,  not  thoughts;  deeds,  not  words. 
He  concentrates  all  his  impatience  with  bookish 
inertness  in  his  poem  "  Tomlinson,"  the  man  with 
the  soul  too  pitiful  to  damn,  with  whom  the  devil 
talks  at  heaven's  gate : — 

"  Ye  have  heard,  ye  have  read,  ye  have  thought,"  he  said, 

"  and  the  tale  is  yet  to  run : 

By  the  worth  of  the  body  that  once  ye  had,  give  an- 
swer— what  ha*  ye  done? 

Go  back  to  Earth  with  a  lip  unsealed — go  back  with  an 

open  eye, 
And  carry  my  words  to  the  sons  of  men  or  ever  ye  come 

to  die; 
That  the  sins  they  do  by  two  by  two,  they  must  pay 

for  one  by  one, 
And    .    .    .    the  God  that  you  took  from  a  printed  book 

be  with  you,  Tomlinson." 

Even  an  excess  of  intelligence  may  delay  the 
world's  progress  if  it  leads  men  to  indecisiveness  and 
inaction.  The  decisive  characters  in  life,  the  men 
who  set  the  mills  of  God  grinding,  are  men  distin- 
guished for  their  energy  and  vigor.  In  the  new  age 
ushered  in  by  the  war,  the  world  needs  men  of  action, 
not  the  ansemics  "  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of 
thought."  A  man's  man  is  emphatically  and  always 
a  man  capable  of  resolute  will,  rapid  decision  and 
decisive  action. 

Another  quality  that  men  rightly  admire  in  men 
is  readiness  for  self-sacrifice.  The  records  of  the 
war  abound  in  noble  instances  of  men  yielding  their 


A  MAN'S  MAN  61 

lives  for  their  fellows.  Parallel  with  such  an  act  as 
the  sub-lieutenant  who  threw  himself  upon  a  grenade 
which  would  have  scattered  death  in  his  trench,  we 
may  put  a  victory  of  peace  no  less  renowned  than 
war.  In  all  the  annals  of  chivalry  we  have  no 
grander  story  than  that  of  Captain  Gates,  the  "  very 
gallant  gentleman"  who,  realizing  that  his  sickness 
was  endangering  the  lives  of  his  comrades  on  Scott's 
expedition  to  the  South  Pole,  announced  that  he  was 
going  out  of  the  hut  for  a  little  while,  and  stepped 
into  the  swirling  blizzard  to  meet  his  death.  Contrast 
this  with  the  vain-glorious  egotism  of  Balzac,  who 
loved  to  tell  how,  when  he  was  in  Russia,  the  com- 
panion of  a  lady  upon  whom  he  was  calling,  hearing 
the  hostess  say  "  M.  Balzac,"  in  addressing  him, 
dropped  the  tea-tray  in  her  astonishment.  "  I  know 
what  glory  is,"  Balzac  would  add,  with  real  happiness 
in  reviving  that  memory. 

Men  admire  a  man  who  can  stand  the  pinch  of 
prosperity.  On  the  whole,  prosperity  breaks  the  finer 
morale  of  more  men  than  does  adversity.  To  bear 
adversity  is  comparatively  easy  to  a  man — "  man  is 
born  to  trouble  as  the  sparks  fly  upward";  but  to 
grow  rich  gracefully,  to  become  famous  without 
growing  bumptious,  to  carry  honors  unostentatiously 
and  to  exercise  power  without  becoming  arbitrary, 
these  are  real  tests  of  manhood.  Many  a  man  be- 
sides W.  E.  Henley  can  boast  the  captaincy  of  his  soul 
and  say: — 

"  In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 
I  have  not  winced,  nor  cried  aloud; 
Beneath  the  bludgeonings  of  chance 
My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed." 


62  THE  STBATEGY  OF  LIFE 

But  the  men  who  can  honestly  claim  to  have  made 
a  signal  success  of  life  without  being  spoiled  by  their 
prosperity  are  far  fewer  in  number. 

"  If  you  can  talk  with  crowds  and  keep  your  virtue, 

Or  walk  with  kings  nor  lose  the  common  touch; 
If  neither  foes  nor  loving  friends  can  hurt  you, 

If  all  men  count  with  you,  but  none  too  much; 
If  you  can  fill  the  unforgiving  minute 

With  sixty  seconds'  worth  of  distance  run, 
Yours  is  the  earth  and  everything  that's  in  it, 

And — which  is  more — you'll  be  a  man,  my  son." 

The  man  who  can  be  trusted  is  always  a  man's 
man.  "A  man's  word  should  be  as  good  as  his  bond." 
We  use  the  trite  phrase  without  reflecting  that  if 
every  man's  word  were  a  guarantee  of  good  faith,  the 
lawyers  who  draw  up  our  contracts  and  agreements 
would  very  soon  be  among  the  great  unemployed. 

Absolute  reliability  of  word  is  unfortunately  rare. 
Judges  are  constantly  deploring  the  patent  perjury  of 
witnesses  in  law-courts.  It  was  a  very  experienced 
magistrate  who,  weary  of  the  false  evidence  given 
before  him,  snapped  out  the  cynicism :  "  David  said 
in  his  haste,  but  I  say  deliberately,  '  All  men  are 
liars.'  "  This  was  an  impatient  exaggeration ;  but  it 
is  a  painful  fact  that  verbal  contracts  have  to  be 
accepted  very  cautiously  by  business  men.  The  late 
Mr.  Charles  Frchman,  the  theatrical  entrepreneur, 
had  a  world-wide  reputation  as  a  man  whose  word 
bound  him.  Dramatists  who  wrote  plays  for  him 
never  concerned  themselves  about  written  contracts. 
Frohman  would  talk  an  idea  over  with  a  playwright, 
commission  him  to  write  the  play,  say  what  royalty  he 
would  pay,  and  there  the  matter  ended.  Frohman 


A  MAN'S  MAN  53 

was  implicitly  trusted  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
He  always  kept  his  word.  But  he  died  over  head 
and  ears  in  debt! 

I  am  not  sure  that  any  characteristic  repels  men 
so  sharply  as  cynicism — especially  in  a  young  man. 
Walpole's  sneer  that  "  every  man  has  his  price  and 
every  woman  "  is  a  gross  libel  on  human  nature ;  and 
Lord  Chesterfield's  declaration  that  the  heart  of  man 
hardens  as  he  grows  older  is  a  manifest  slander  on 
mankind.  A  cynic  has  been  defined  as  one  who 
knows  the  price  of  everything  but  the  value  of  noth- 
ing. Young  men  are  often  tempted  into  affecting 
an  airy  cynicism.  The  habit  is  one  of  the  worst  a 
young  man  can  acquire.  It  usually  brings  upon  him 
the  reproach  of  shallowness.  Moreover  it  is  a  habit 
that,  beginning  as  an  affectation,  settles  into  a  con- 
firmed twist  of  mind,  resulting  in  a  low  and  distress- 
ing estimate  of  all  men  and  women.  In  Mr.  Andrew 
Burger's  Thistledown  and  Mustard  Seed  there  is  an 
illustrative  story,  called  "  The  Motive-monger,"  of  a 
boy  who  as  a  child  used  to  sit  apart  and  wonder  why. 
His  childish  mind  was  always  on  the  search  for 
motives.  This  frame  of  mind  grew,  and  as  Sir  Ralph 
was  thrown  among  cunning  people  who  confirmed 
him  in  it,  the  habit  gradually  consumed  him.  "  It 
darkened  the  brightness  of  the  sun,  took  the  taste  out 
of  food,  and  the  merriment  out  of  wine.  One  day, 
in  answer  to  his  usual  question,  '  What's  your 
motive?'  a  friend  said:  'What's  your  motive  in  ask- 
ing my  motive  ?  '  Sir  Ralph  caught  the  man's  hand, 
swore  he  was  a  splendid  fellow,  and — refused  his 
request.  But  ever  afterwards  he  took  a  keener 
delight  in  seeking  for  motives.  Nay,  he  would  often 


64  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

stop  in  the  road  and  say  to  himself:  'What's  my 
motive  ? '  It  did  not  take  him  many  years  to  fret 
him  to  the  verge  of  the  grave.  And  when  the  devil 
came  to  take  him,  his  first  remark  to  the  fiery  gen- 
tleman was  '  What's  your '  "  But  the  devil  did 

not  give  Sir  Ralph  time  to  finish  the  question.  Just 
because  cynicism  paralyzes  a  man's  better  nature,  and 
vitiates  his  whole  outlook  on  life,  it  is  one  of  the  vices 
of  character  that  men  regard  with  aversion. 

The  qualities  that  commend  a  man  to  men  are 
reliability  in  act  and  word,  a  dutiful  sense  of  obliga- 
tion to  his  fellows,  a  joyful  zest  for  action,  a  cheerful 
acceptance  of  good  fortune  or  ill  fortune,  and  a 
modest  and  frank  appreciation  of  other  men's  good 
points  without  censoriousness  of  their  shortcomings. 
These  are  the  qualities  that  enable  men  to — 

".    .    .    be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony, 
Enkindle  generous  ardor,  feed  pure  love, 
Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty — 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused 
And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense." 

So  may  we  all  join — 

"  The  choir  invisible 
Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world." 


VII 

THE  MARKS  OF  A  GENTLEMAN 


"^T'lT'THAT  is  it  to  be  a  gentleman?"  asks 
%  I\J  Thackeray;  and  answering  his  own 
V  T  question,  he  said  :  "  It  is  to  be  honest,  to 
be  gentle,  to  be  generous,  to  be  brave,  to  be  wise; 
and,  possessing  all  these  qualities,  to  exercise  them  in 
the  most  graceful  outward  manner."  A  shorter  and 
truer  definition  is  that  "  a  gentleman  is  one  who 
never  willingly  inflicts  pain."  The  black  cook  in 
The  Lady  of  the  Decoration,  who  did  not  want  to 
"  discomboberate  "  anybody  —  inconvenience  any- 
body —  helps  us  to  an  understanding  of  the  essence 
of  gentlemanliness.  A  whole  hemisphere  separates 
gentlemanliness  from  gentility.  Genteel  is  a  word 
that  was  often  on  the  lips  of  our  grandfathers,  but 
is  now  happily  almost  obsolete.  It  has  horrible  asso- 
ciations. Miss  Ellen  Thorneycroft  Fowler  some- 
where makes  one  of  her  girl  characters  ask  her 
mother  the  question:  "Is  Mrs.  So-and-so  a  lady?" 
"  Well,"  comes  the  guarded  reply,  subtle  in  its  cun- 
ning differentiation,  "  not  exactly.  She  belongs  to 
the  class  of  people  who  pronounce  the  t  in  often. 
Genteel  is  the  word  for  her,  I  think."  Gentlemanli- 
ness involves  a  very  different  order  of  moral  quality 
from  mere  gentility. 

55 


56  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

The  war,  it  has  been  said,  has  stirred  the  muddy 
depths  of  modern  civilization,  and  left  the  world 
badly  in  need  of  a  moral  spring-cleaning.  Neces- 
sarily in  time  of  war  the  man  of  force  leaps  into  the 
forefront,  and  the  man  of  sensitive  instincts  is  over- 
shadowed. War-time  is  the  halcyon  age  of  the 
bounder,  the  man  of  push  and  energy  and  few 
scruples.  The  marks  of  a  gentleman  get  obliterated 
or  blurred  out  of  recognition  when  brute  forces  are 
contending.  We  shall  have  to  retrace  our  paths  to 
recover  the  gentleman,  and  for  the  quest  we  must 
clean  our  minds  of  false  conceptions  of  his  attributes. 

The  first  essential  mark  of  a  gentleman  is  neither 
the  fashionable  cut  of  his  clothes  nor  the  superfine 
polish  of  his  manners,  but  just  that  quality  of  heart 
which  restrains  him  from  causing  distress,  inconveni- 
ence, or  pain  to  those  who  cross  his  path.  Unself- 
ishness is  as  the  core  of  gentlemanliness.  Now  of 
all  the  virtues  unselfishness  is  the  one  most  foreign  to 
the  natural  man.  Selfishness,  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious, is  instinctive — it  dates  from  the  days  when 
men  lived  in  trees  and  courted  their  sweethearts  with 
a  club — and  it  is  only  overcome  by  severe  training, 
and  by  firm  moral  resolution.  A  true  gentleman  does 
not  make  life  hard  for  any  one.  King  Edward  VII 
gave  a  glorious  example  of  his  scrupulous  regard  for 
the  fine  susceptibilities  of  others  when  M.  Fallieres, 
the  French  President,  was  making  a  State  visit  to 
England.  Anxious  that  nothing  should  jar  upon  his 
visitor,  the  King  gave  express  instructions  that  the 
train  bringing  the  President  to  England  should  not 
arrive  at  Waterloo  Station,  and  that  the  route  of  his 
carriage  should  avoid  Trafalgar  Square.  Both  names 


THE  MAKES  OF  A  GENTLEMAN         57 

commemorate  victories  over  France  that  might  be 
unpleasant  memories. 

Charles  Kingsley  divided  mankind  into  three 
groups — "  honest  men  who  mean  to  do  right  and  do 
it;  knaves  who  mean  to  do  wrong  and  do  it;  and 
fools  who  mean  to  do  whichever  is  pleasanter  of  the 
two."  The  multitudes  of  men  who  mean  to  do  right 
often  miss  the  mark,  but  are  redeemed  by  their  good 
intentions.  Especially  is  this  true  of  speech.  One 
of  the  hall-marks  of  a  gentleman  is  his  instinctive 
natural  courtesy.  He  is  reticent  with  reproof,  slow 
to  anger,  and  reluctant  to  judge.  The  average  man 
reviewing  his  life  finds  few  occasions  of  silence  of 
which  he  has  to  repent.  We  may  often  be  left 
mourning  over  our  hasty  utterances,  but  seldom  over 
the  things  we  have  left  unsaid.  Words  are  beyond 
recall  as  soon  as  uttered. 

"  Tis  vain  to  pull  the  trigger, 
Then  try  to  stop  the  ball." 

In  nothing  does  a  man  show  the  hall-mark  of  a 
gentleman  more  than  in  his  readiness  to  make  ample 
apology  and  honorable  amends  for  any  pain  he  has 
unwittingly  or  inadvertently  caused.  Only  a  gentle- 
man can  really  make  an  apology.  One  of  the  truest 
apologies  ever  made  is  recorded  by  Dean  Welldon. 
When  he  was  headmaster  of  Harrow,  Mr.  S.  H. 
Butcher — the  classical  scholar  who  translated  the 
Odyssey  with  Mr.  Andrew  Lang — came  down  from 
the  University  to  be  master  of  a  junior  form.  His 
boys  gave  him  a  terrible  time.  They  ragged  him 
unmercifully,  but  Butcher  was  gentle  and  patient 
through  it  all,  and  melted  the  hearts  of  the  young 


68  THE  STKATEGY  OF  LIFE 

cubs  by  his  forbearing  spirit.  Near  the  end  of  the 
term  they  felt  ashamed  of  themselves,  and,  clubbing 
together,  bought  a  little  present  out  of  the  last  relics 
of  their  pocket-money.  The  senior  boy  shuffled  up 
to  the  master's  desk,  and  handed  over  the  little  peace- 
offering  with  the  apology — "  Please,  sir,  we've  been 
such  brutes." 

A  new  beatitude  was  offered  the  world  by  Mark 
Rutherford.  It  ran :  "  Blessed  are  they  who  relieve 
us  of  our  self-despisings."  To  stimulate  self-respect 
in  others  is  one  of  the  gentlemanly  virtues.  Tur- 
genieff,  the  Russian  novelist,  on  his  way  home  one 
bitterly  cold  night,  passed  a  shivering,  half -clothed 
beggar  in  the  street.  He  turned  back  and  felt  in  his 
pocket  for  a  coin,  but  found  that  he  had  no  money 
with  him.  But  turning  to  the  beggar  he  said :  "  I  am 
very  sorry,  brother,  but  I  have  nothing  with  me  to 
give  you."  The  beggar,  with  whom  no  one  had  ever 
claimed  brotherhood,  answered :  "  Never  mind  the 
money.  You  have  given  me  something  better  by 
calling  me  brother."  Such  sympathy  is  another  hall- 
mark of  a  gentleman,  for  as  Hazlitt  says :  "  The  ex- 
tent of  our  sympathy  is  determined  by  our  sensi- 
bility." 

Thoughtfulness,  considerateness,  forbearance,  pa- 
tience— these  are  the  qualities  of  a  gentleman.  I 
once  asked  Dr.  Macnamara,  the  Parliamentary  Sec- 
retary to  the  Admiralty,  if  Mr.  A.  J.  Balfour — who 
was  then  First  Lord  of  the  English  Admiralty — ever 
doffed  the  charming  courtesy  of  manner  which  every 
one  observes  in  his  bearing.  "  Never,"  replied  Dr. 
Macnamara.  "  He  is  always  the  same  embodiment 
of  courtesy — even  to  an  elevator-boy.  It  is  part  of 


THE  MARKS  OF  A  GENTLEMAN         59 

his  character — I  doubt  whether  he  could  drop  it  now 
— it  has  become  a  sort  of  second  nature."  This  ex- 
quisite courtesy,  as  no  one  who  remembers  Mr.  Bal- 
four's  rule  in  Ireland  needs  to  be  reminded,  does  not 
imply  any  softness,  or  sentimentality,  or  effeminate- 
ness.  He  can  use  the  iron  hand,  even  if  he  disguises 
it  under  a  velvet  glove.  Gentleness  of  manner  may, 
and  should,  cover  firmness  in  action.  There  is  no 
contradiction  or  inconsistency  in  the  natural  gentle- 
man's shrinkage  from  inflicting  pain,  and  the  strong 
man's  resolute  will. 

Sir  Robert  Baden  Powell  lays  down  one  unalter- 
able rule  for  Boy  Scouts.  It  is  the  standing  order 
that  a  scout  must  do  one  good  turn  a  day  to  some- 
body else.  And  the  founder  of  the  Boy  Scout  move- 
ment told  me  that  nothing  gives  him  greater  joy  than 
the  tradition  which  is  being  surely  established — 
"  Once  a  scout,  always  a  gentleman."  Boy  Scouts 
are  trained  in  manliness,  truth,  bravery,  and  con- 
siderateness,  and  these  are  the  qualities  of  a  gentle- 
man. 

Lord  Roberts,  who  was  another  example  of  the 
perfect  gentleman,  is  credited  with  an  historic  act 
of  gentlemanliness.  In  one  of  his  campaigns  he 
showed  his  appreciation  of  the  valor  of  a  young  non- 
commissioned officer  by  giving  him  commissioned 
rank  on  the  spot.  Moreover,  he  made  the  new  sub- 
altern sit  next  to  him  at  mess  that  night.  The  boy 
was  embarrassed  by  his  unfamiliar  surroundings,  and 
when  ice  was  passed  round,  he  took  a  lump  and 
dropped  it  in  his — soup!  One  of  the  other  young 
officers  present  snickered  audibly;  but  Lord  Roberts, 
with  infinite  delicacy  of  feeling,  quietly  lifted  a  piece 


60  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

of  ice  and  dropped  it  in  his  own  soup.  The  ice  went 
round  the  table,  and  every  officer  present  did  ex- 
actly the  same  thing.  The  story  may  be  merely  a 
"plain  tale  from  the  hills,"  but  anyway  it  is  just 
what  Lord  Roberts  would  have  done. 

Dr.  R,  F,  Horton,  who  vouches  for  its  perfect 
truth,  tells  a  story  of  a  gentleman  who  had  been  ex- 
tremely successful  in  the  lumber  trade,  and  had 
gained  by  his  superior  ability  a  large  proportion  of 
the  great  contracts  of  the  colony.  One  of  his  men 
set  up  an  opposition  business,  and  managed  to  draw 
away  many  of  the  contracts  which  formerly  went  to 
his  employer.  At  a  time  when  engaged  on  contracts 
that  admitted  of  no  delay,  the  whole  of  his  timber- 
yard  was  burned  down.  On  the  day  after  the  fire, 
his  former  employer  walked  into  his  office,  went 
quietly  up  to  him,  and  without  wasting  words  in 
sympathy  or  comment  said :  "  I  know  your  position, 
and  the  contracts  that  are  due,  and  I  wish  to  put  at 
your  disposal  the  timber  in  my  yard,  so  that  you  may 
save  your  position."  According  to  the  rules  of  polit- 
ical economy  that  man  behaved  absurdly,  but  his  act 
was  that  of  a  very  magnanimous  gentleman. 

Good-breeding  and  refined  manners  stamp  a  man ; 
but  these  are  the  externals.  True  gentlemanliness  is 
the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  in- 
visible grace  of  soul.  Nevertheless,  externals  are 
not  to  be  discounted  as  irrelevant.  John  Oliver 
Hobbes  says  the  whole  course  of  a  man's  life  may 
be  affected  by  turning  the  toes  in,  or  out,  at  a  crucial 
moment — on  such  little  things  are  first  judgments 
based.  First  judgments  may  be  generally  wrong, 
but  they  have  a  habit  of  sticking,  and  they,  repeat 


THE  MAEKS  OF  A  GENTLEMAN         61 

themselves  like  recurring  decimals.  Awkwardness 
and  tactlessness  create  prejudices  which  have  to  be 
lived  down. 

Manners  are  more  than  a  mere  gloss.  They  may 
be  used  as  a  veneer,  but  they  are  often  an  instinctive 
revelation  of  character.  A  nice  distinction  has  to 
be  drawn  between  manners  and  etiquette.  Etiquette 
is  merely  an  arbitrary  code  of  conduct  and  behavior. 
Lord  Chesterfield  was  a  past-master  of  etiquette,  but 
Dr.  Johnson  declared  that  Chesterfield's  Letters  to 
his  Godson  taught  only  the  manners  of  a  dancing- 
master.  Rudeness  may  express  itself  in  the  boorish- 
ness  of  an  ignorant  man,  or  in  the  veiled  contemptu- 
ousness  of  an  educated  man;  but  the  essence  is  like 
in  both.  "  Icily  regular,  splendidly  null  "  people  may 
be  as  rude  as  any  boor;  and  the  people  who  chill 
others  by  that  frigid,  annihilating  politeness,  which 
is  "  second  cousin  to  downright  rudeness,"  are  more 
offensive  than  those  who  practise  brusqueness. 

Ease  with  dignity  are  the  marks  of  a  gentleman, 
and  for  both  business  and  social  life  a  combination 
of  an  easy  manner  with  quiet  dignity  is  to  be  de- 
sired. Familiarity  is  above  all  things  to  be  avoided. 
"  I  do  not  recognize  your  face,"  said  a  man  who  had 
been  siapped  on  the  back  by  another,  "but  your 
manners  are  very  familiar."  Good  manners,  like 
courtesy — which  Emerson  said  has  its  foundations 
in  benevolence — oil  the  wheels  of  human  intercourse, 
and  they  are  as  admirable  in  the  affairs  of  the 
market-place  and  the  counting-house  as  in  the  draw- 
ing-room or  at  the  dining-table.  They  are  an  es- 
sential element  in  the  strategy  of  life,  and  among  the 
ineffaceable  marks  of  a  true  gentleman. 


VIII 
HABITS  AND  VICES 

THE  evils  of  alcoholism  have  been  thrust 
upon  us  so  constantly  that  no  sensible 
young  man  needs  any  serious  warning 
against  drink.  Hardly  a  family  escapes  entirely  the 
curse  of  alcohol,  and  many  of  the  brightest  intellects 
and  most  promising  careers  are  blighted  by  this  in- 
sidious vice. 

America  and  Canada  have  gone  "  dry,"  not  for 
sentimental  reasons,  but  for  the  sake  of  industrial 
prosperity.  Long  before  the  United  States  accepted 
Prohibition  the  captains  of  industry  were  insisting 
on  the  strict  sobriety  of  their  work-people.  No  en- 
gine-driver would  be  engaged  on  some  of  the  great 
trunk  railways  if  he  used  alcohol  as  a  beverage. 
Drinking  even  at  meal-tables  was  frowned  upon,  and 
insobriety  was  a  social  offence.  Because  they  wanted 
to  keep  their  workers  contented  and  efficient,  Ameri- 
can manufacturers  were  agreeing  that  it  was  a  bad 
proposition  to  build  factories  in  "  wet  "  areas. 

Alcohol,  except  in  the  rare  cases  where  medical 
men  still  prescribe  it,  is  the  enemy  of  efficiency.  Even 
in  tiny  doses  its  effects  are  deleterious,  and  the  stimu- 
lus it  supplies  is  inevitably  succeeded  by  a  depressive 
reaction. 

A  young  man  anxious  to  develop  his  best 
62 


HABITS  AND  VICES  63 

potentialities  ought  sedulously  to  avoid  alcohol.  A 
teetotaler  benefits  in  health,  in  business  prospects,  and 
in  duration  of  life.  So  marked  is  total  abstinence 
on  longevity  that  after  actuarial  tests,  spread  over 
many  years,  several  of  the  leading  insurance  offices 
offer  either  additional  benefits,  or  reduced  premiums, 
to  teetotalers.  A  young  man  who  declines  wine, 
beer,  or  spirits  to-day  is  not  regarded  as  an  oddity. 
Teetotalers  are  no  longer  exceptional  people.  They 
are  an  increasing  quantity.  Of  nothing  is  it  truer 
than  of  alcohol  that — 

"  in  the  field  of  destiny 
We  reap  as  we  have  sown." 


The  most  hardened  smoker  admits  that  a  strong 
case  can  be  made  against  smoking.  He  concedes 
that  it  is  a  dirty  practice — and  even  if  he  denied  it, 
his  teeth  would  bear  witness  against  him.  He  knows, 
too,  that  it  is  an  extravagance.  Without  hesitation 
he  allows  that  over-ssnoking  injures  digestion  and 
impairs  sleep,  that  it  induces  a  mental  and  physical 
lethargy,  and  that  he  fee^ls  its  injurious  effects  when- 
ever he  runs  for  a  train.  Yet  he  goes  on  smoking. 
In  theory  he  knows  he  should  not;  in  practice  he 
declares  that  his  moderate  smoking — and  what  man 
ever  admits  that  he  is  immoderate  ? — involves  so  little 
risk  that  he  does  not  mind  taking  it.  Sir  Benjamin 
Ward  Richardson's  dictum  that  "  smoking  is  a  doubt- 
ful pleasure  with  a  certain  penalty  "  leaves  him  un- 
moved. A  smoker's  psychology  is  a  thing  incompre- 
hensible. 

In  a  book  which  came  recently  into  my  possession 


64  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

an  anonymous  author,  writing  in  the  year  1885,  and 
confessing  that  he  had  been  a  smoker  for  twenty- 
three  years,  observed  that  "  it  is  possible  that  in  a  few 
years'  time,  the  cigar  and  the  pipe  may  be  as  com- 
pletely things  of  the  past,  as  the  snuff-box  is  now." 
Thirty-odd  years  have  gone  by  since  that  opinion 
was  avowed,  and  smoking  has  become  so  general 
that  the  proportion  of  non-smokers  to  smokers  during 
the  war  was  calculated  at  one  to  every  hundred.  The 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  became  the  largest  retail  tobacconist  in 
the  whole  wide  world.  Moreover,  during  the  war, 
women  who  had  smoked  in  secret  came  out  into  the 
open,  till  a  Bishop  was  led  to  rebuke  them  by  saying 
that  "one  of  the  happy  memories  of  childhood  is 
my  mother's  'good-night'  kiss,  and  I  confess  I  am 
thankful  that  I  have  not  to  associate  it  with  the  sug- 
gestion of  tobacco." 

To  a  young  man  there  is  this  to  be  said  with 
sincerity  and  emphasis :  "  You  are  better  without 
smoking.  If  tobacco  has  a  certain  social  value,  and 
is  conducive  to  real  fellowship,  that  is  the  only  case 
that  can  be  made  out  for  it.  In  any  case  let  no  one 
persuade  you  to  smoke  until  you  are  eighteen,  and 
be  on  your  guard  against  the  habit  gaining  a  mastery 
over  you.  Make  quite  sure  that  you  can  give  it  up 
whenever  you  want.  Otherwise  you  are  not  captain 
of  your  soul."  Sir  William  Crookes,  who  lived  to  be 
eighty-six,  attributed  his  longevity  to  enjoying  all 
good  things  in  moderation.  If  a  young  man  smokes 
at  all,  he  should  bring  his  smoking  under  the  dis- 
ciplinary rule  of  "moderation  in  all  things."  Mr. 
Gladstone  once  said  that  the  best  maxim  for  a  man 
was  Burke's  saying,  that  "early  and  provident  fear 


HABITS  AND  VICES  65 

is  the  mother  of  safety."  An  early  and  provident 
fear  of  becoming  a  docile  slave  to  any  habit  should 
be  a  young  man's  guiding  principle. 

Slang  has  worked  its  way  so  firmly  into  the  warp 
and  woof  of  our  language,  that  to  protest  against  it 
would  be  futility.  Schoolboys  have  a  vernacular  of 
their  own,  and  even  if  it  is  not  exactly  pleasant,  it 
is  rarely  odious.  The  language  of  the  drill-sergeant 
and  the  lingo  of  the  barrack-room  have  unhappily 
become  an  obnoxious  feature  of  "  English  as  she  is 
spoke."  Lurid  phrases,  scarcely  veiled  obscenities, 
and  rank  blasphemy  in  common  speech  are  a  legacy 
of  the  war.  Even  girls  are  "  not  particular  "  now  in 
their  language.  The  habit  of  using  loose  language  is 
one  against  which  a  young  man  needs  to  guard.  Bad 
language  is  not  altogether  a  question  of  mere  wicked- 
ness :  rather  it  is  a  question  of  low  and  vulgar  taste — a 
first  stage  in  depravity  of  mind  and  declension  of 
character. 

Professor  Gilbert  Murray  sees  evidence  of  de- 
cadence in  the  rapidity  with  which  tobacco  and  bad 
language  seem  to  be  gaining  on  us.  "  Tobacco,"  he 
said,  addressing  the  Moral  Education  League,  "  is 
a  slight  narcotic  poison;  the  use  of  bad  language,  I 
take  to  be  due  to  a  slight  nervous  convulsion  mo- 
mentarily destroying  self-control  and  releasing  certain 
subconscious  interests,  such  as  extreme  rage  and  love 
of  filth,  which  are  normally  suppressed.  I  do  not 
venture  to  pronounce  whether  the  use  of  this  slight 
narcotic  and  the  management  of  this  slight  nervous 
convulsion  are  beneficial  or  otherwise,  or  whether,  as 
some  suggest,  they  should  be  confined  to  women  and 


66  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

people  of  sedentary  habits ;  but  I  would  call  attention 
to  what  I  think  is  the  fact,  that  never  in  the  history 
of  the  world  has  there  been  a  society  in  which  both 
men  and  women  were  so  habitually  under  the  in- 
fluence of  these  two  sedatives  as  at  present." 

Indolence  may  be  temperamental,  but  it  has  to  be 
fought  down.  Nothing  is  so  fatal  to  a  young  man's 
prospects  in  life.  An  idle  man  has  no  place  in  a 
healthy  community,  and  unless  he  has  riches  he  soon 
finds  this  out.  The  habit  of  procrastinating — never 
doing  anything  to-day  that  can  be  deferred  till  to- 
morrow— has  often  been  called  "  the  thief  of  time." 
In  business  matters  and  even  in  the  minor  affairs  of 
life,  the  habit  should  be  learned  of  keeping  fully 
abreast  with  one's  work.  Nothing  that  can  be  done 
one  day  should  be  thrown  over  until  the  next.  I 
have  heard  men  say  of  a  colleague :  "  He  is  a  capable 
man  and  conscientious,  too ;  but  he  lets  his  work  get 
on  top  of  him."  Work  neglected  or  deferred  accu- 
mulates at  a  frightful  pace,  and  the  opportunities  for 
overtaking  arrears  never  seem  to  come.  Discourage- 
ment and  a  sense  of  bewildered  helplessness  are  bred 
by  postponing  things  that  ought  to  be  dealt  with  sum- 
marily. A  good  business  man  leaves  no  loose 
ends — he  is  all  too  conscious  of  the  perils  they  create. 

When  prostrated  by  Brazilian  fever,  complicated 
by  a  fistula  and  abscesses  in  his  ears,  Theodore 
Roosevelt  lay  on  a  couch  in  a  New  York  hotel,  dictat- 
ing to  his  secretary.  His  face  was  grey,  and  his 
secretary,  seeing  the  Colonel  was  tired,  suggested 
leaving  the  rest  of  the  letters  until  the  next  morning. 
"  No ;  we'll  finish  up  to-night,"  said  Roosevelt. 


HABITS  AND  VICES  67 

"  When  I  was  President  I  cleared  decks  every  day, 
and  I'm  going  to  clear  decks  now."  He  finished  dic- 
tating; then,  fainting  with  pain,  rolled  on  the  floor, 
leaving  the  couch  drenched  with  blood.  Keep  your 
decks  clear,  and  take  care  that  to-morrow  is  not 
mortgaged  by  the  neglects  of  to-day.  This  is  one 
of  the  golden  rules  of  successful  business. 

Enthusiasts  are  often  despised  by  people  who  affect 
a  leisured  calm  in  all  things.  While  excess  of  zeal, 
and  zeal  in  the  wrong  place,  may  be  an  irritating 
characteristic  in  a  man — and  even  the  mark  of  a  bore — 
apathy  is  a  soul-destroying  habit  of  mind.  A  young 
man  without  an  enthusiasm  of  any  sort  develops  into 
an  amorphous  and  stodgy  personality.  Cherish  your 
enthusiasms.  Take  sides,  and  hold  your  opinions 
passionately.  Let  your  work  absorb  your  mental  and 
physical  energies,  and  enter  into  your  recreations  with 
all  your  might.  The  angel  of  death  is  said  to  have 
waited  upon  a  man,  only  to  find  that  he  had  been 
dead  all  his  life — dead  to  every  enthusiasm.  It  is 
much  better  to  be  alive  than  to  be  dead;  and  our 
enthusiasms  quicken  our  lives  and  enrich  our  spirits. 
There  are  some  things  worth  dying  for;  there  are 
many  more  things  worth  living  for. 


IX 
PURITY  AND  CHIVALRY 

Y  two  wings,"  says  Thomas  a  Kempis,  "  a 
man  is  lifted  up  from  things  earthly — by 
simplicity  and  purity."  During  the  last  ten 
years  the  whole  question  of  sexual  purity  has  been 
faced  from  a  new  angle.  The  subject  is  not  a 
pleasant  one;  but  the  need  for  presenting  the  ideal 
of  purity  to  the  young  men  of  our  time  is  urgent,  and 
to  shrink  from  the  task  is  an  evasion  of  duty. 

Dr.  Woods  Hutchinson  declares  his  belief  (in 
The  Doctor  in  War}  that — notwithstanding  the  old 
popular  delusions  to  the  contrary — the  young  are 
clean-minded  and  more  decent  and  sensible  about 
these  matters  than  the  middle-aged;  and  that  once 
possessed  of  sufficient  knowledge,  average  humanity 
is  surprisingly  sound  and  sensible  in  judgment.  He 
expresses  approval  of  the  emphasis  which  army  doc- 
tors placed  upon  two  facts:  (i)  that  sexual  in- 
dulgence is  not  in  the  least  necessary  to  health,  and 
(2)  that  the  greatest  menace  of  such  illicit  pleasure 
is  to  the  welfare  of  the  next  generation.  "  The  dan- 
gers of  the  adolescent  period,"  he  declares,  "have 
been  enormously  exaggerated,  and  the  hysterical  de- 
scriptions to  boys  and  young  men  of  the  terrible 
temptations  and  fierce  struggles  with  these  instincts 
which  they  are  sure  to  experience  if  they  attempt  to 

68 


PUEITY  AND  CHIVALRY  69 

behave  decently  and  sensibly,  do  far  more  harm  than 
good." 

I  believe  myself  that  infinite  mischief  is  done  by 
leaving  boys  in  ignorance  as  to  their  sexual  nature. 
The  instinct  of  sex  runs  like  a  powerful  current 
through  all  nature.  In  the  case  of  most  animals  the 
instinct  is  controlled  for  them  by  mysterious  physi- 
ological laws,  and  man  alone  is  left  to  control  himself 
by  the  force  of  will  and  conscience.  This  sex  in- 
stinct is  a  possession  for  which  a  young  man  carries  a 
responsibility  to  succeeding  generations.  The  old 
tradition,  which  happily  has  now  passed  away,  that 
"  youth  must  be  served,"  and  "  a  young  man  must 
sow  his  wild  oats,"  has,  as  Dr.  Hutchinson  says,  been 
responsible  for  probably  as  many  wrecks  and  mis- 
fortunes as  all  the  hot-headed  and  uncontrollable 
impulses  of  youth  put  together. 

Sexual  immorality  is  one  of  the  vices  that  are 
individually  degrading  and  socially  desolating.  No 
warning  is  really  needed  by  a  young  man  against 
sexual  promiscuity.  His  own  conscience  condemns 
it.  He  would  want  to  shield  his  sister  against  it; 
and  he  knows  that  when  he  comes  to  be  the  father 
of  sons,  he  will  want  his  boys  to  have  a  high  standard 
of  personal  purity.  A  young  man  cannot  indulge 
his  sexual  propensities  without  injuring  his  most 
sacred  possession — his  own  personality.  Purity  is 
the  crown  of  real  manliness,  and  impurity  of  act, 
speech  or  thought  is  the  enemy  of  the  noblest  qualities 
of  young  manhood. 

Faith  in  the  virtue  of  women  is  the  foundation  of 
domestic  happiness.  That  faith  can  only  be  pre- 
served by  maintaining  towards  all  women  a  chivalrous 


70  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

respect  which  forbids  sexual  license.  In  the  days 
of  chivalry  purity  in  the  young  knight's  relations  to 
women  was  impressed  upon  him,  at  his  initiation,  as 
a  religious  ideal;  and  it  was  in  the  spirit  of  ancient 
chivalry  that  Lord  Kitchener,  in  his  famous  message 
to  his  soldiers  embarking  for  France,  enjoined  upon 
them  the  duty  of  being  courteous  to  all  women,  but 
familiar  with  none. 

No  one  conversant  with  the  facts  can  blind  his 
eyes  to  the  sinister  truth  that  the  war — as  all  wars 
have  in  the  past — has  had  a  deteriorating  effect  on 
sex  morality.  The  conscientious  young  man  of 
to-day,  desirous  of  taking  his  small  part  in  restoring 
the  best  elements  of  national  character,  should 
quietly  resolve  that  neither  by  speech  nor  act  will  he 
have  any  responsibility  for  lowering  moral  standards. 
Morality  based  on  fear  is  not  the  soundest  morality 
for  a  young  man.  He  requires  a  far  higher  impera- 
tive than  fear.  Nothing,  indeed,  but  an  exalted  ideal 
of  womanhood,  and  the  dynamic  of  moral  conviction 
— at  the  heart  of  which  is  the  religious  sanction — 
are  adequate.  The  purity  of  the  family,  which  is 
the  essential  unit  of  a  high  civilization,  should  be 
his  knightly  concern;  and  the  thought  that  he  may 
in  the  future  be  the  head  of  a  family,  with  sons  and 
daughters  of  his  own,  should  be  with  him  as  a  safe- 
guard against  laxity.  The  standard  of  womanhood 
is  set  by  women  themselves,  and  they  are  largely 
responsible  if  men  take  a  low  one  and  treat  them 
lightly. 

Reverence  for  his  mother,  affection  for  his  sisters, 
and  respect  for  all  women  should  be  cultivated  by 
young  men.  Under  no  circumstances  should  a  young 


PURITY  AND  CHIVALEY  71 

man  trifle  with  the  affections  of  a  young  girl.  The 
friendship  of  women  is  a  thing  to  be  prized,  not 
abused  by  flirtation  or  levity.  Perhaps  it  is  not  quite 
so  true  of  the  modern  girl  as  it  was  of  the  young 
women  of  his  time,  but  there  is  still  much  truth  in 
Washington  Irving's  observation  that  "  a  woman's 
whole  life  is  a  history  of  her  affections;  .  .  .  she 
sends  forth  her  affections  on  adventure,  she  embarks 
her  whole  soul  in  the  traffic  of  affection,  and  if 
shipwrecked  her  case  is  hopeless — for  it  is  a  bank- 
ruptcy of  the  heart."  Possibly  the  Twentieth  Cen- 
tury girl,  who  has  turned  two  of  the  mincing  steps 
of  her  Nineteenth  Century  sister  into  one  manly 
stride,  and  who  boasts  of  a  hockey  limp,  is  beyond 
dying  of  a  broken  heart;  but,  though  times  have 
changed,  a  girl's  affections  are  very  sacred  things, 
and  trifling  with  them  is  wanton  selfishness  unworthy 
of  a  chivalrous  young  man. 

Perhaps  all  I  need  say  here  on  Love  and  Marriage 
is  epitomized  by  the  schoolboy  who,  on  being  given 
the  first  line  of  a  famous  couplet  and  asked  to  com- 
plete it,  wrote: — 

"  'Twere  better  to  have  loved  and  lost, 
Than  not  to  have  loved,  and  won." 


X 

FRIENDSHIPS 

LIFE  is  colored  or  discolored,  embellished  or 
disfigured,  by  our  friendships.     Friendship 
has  been  called  the  wine  of  life.    We  are 
rich  or  poor,  not  as  we  are  possessed  of  money  and 
what  money  can  buy,  but  by  the  wealth  of  our  friend- 
ships.   An  Eastern  proverb  runs : — 

"  He  who  has  a  thousand  friends  has  not  a  friend  to  spare, 
And  he  who  has  but  one  enemy  shall  meet  him  every- 
where." 

Upon  our  genius  for  friendship  our  happiness  rests 
in  a  very  large  measure.  Heredity  and  environment 
mould  our  tendencies.  But  environment  is  not  merely 
a  matter  of  material  surroundings :  it  is  a  question  of 
spiritual  and  moral  influences.  The  impact  of  a 
human  soul  upon  other  souls  is  a  factor  of  immense 
consequence.  Some  personalities  have  a  mesmeric 
quality,  a  power  to  magnetize  those  who  come  within 
their  sphere  of  attraction.  They  radiate  their  in- 
fluence for  good  or  evil.  But  influence  is  not  exerted 
merely  by  these  powerful  radiant  personalities.  The 
gentlest,  and  the  weakest,  and  the  humblest  exert  their 
own  influence  upon  the  lives  of  those  around  them. 
It  is  a  mere  commonplace  to  say  that  most  of  us 
"  cause  our  ripples  "  through  our  friendships.  It  is 

72 


FBIEETDSHIPS  73 

upon  our  immediate  personal  friends  that  we  exert 
what  influence  we  command,  and  it  is  upon  us  that 
our  friends  in  turn  wield  whatever  influence  they 
exercise. 

This  influential  quality  in  friendship  makes  the 
choice  of  friends  a  matter  of  infinite  consequence. 
No  one  need  drift  haphazard  into  a  friendship.  Our 
wills  are  free  in  the  selection  of  companions  and 
friends.  Business  may  compel  us  to  associate  in 
working  hours  with  men  whose  tastes,  habits,  out- 
look and  speech  are  inimical  to  us.  We  may  feel 
out  of  harmony  with  colleagues  in  an  office,  or  mates 
in  a  workshop;  but  the  association  can  end  there. 
For  our  leisure  hours  we  are  free  to  seek  the  com- 
panionship of  kindred  spirits — en  rapport  with  our 
own  moods  and  aspirations.  Moreover,  to  this  choice 
of  friends  we  can  bring  discretion  and  discrimination. 
A  young  man  should  enter  warily  upon  a  friendship, 
groping  his  way  rather  than  plunging  into  an  intimacy 
whose  consequences  may  be  fatal  to  his  whole  life- 
happiness. 

It  was  Emerson  who  said  that,  to  have  a  friend 
we  must  be  a  friend,  and  it  was  the  same  essayist 
who  said  that :  "  We  take  care  of  our  health,  we  lay 
up  money,  we  make  our  roof  tight  and  our  clothing 
sufficient;  but  who  provides  wisely  that  he  shall  not 
be  wanting  in  the  best  property  of  all — friends?" 
Friendship  is  essentially  a  give-and-take  enterprise 
between  souls.  No  lasting  friendship  is  lopsided. 
Disparity  of  age  is  less  of  a  hindrance  to  true  friend- 
ship than  disparity  of  means.  Friendship  between  a 
rich  man  and  a  poor  man  is  rare,  just  because  it 
presents  a  test  few  can  survive.  Half  our  social 


74  THE  STBATEGY  OF  LIFE 

injustice  would  be  abolished  if  real  fellowship  could 
exist  between  employer  and  employee;  but  it  seems 
as  if  it  cannot  be.  The  poor  man  looks  out  for 
evidence  of  patronage  on  the  rich  man's  part,  and  the 
wealthy  man  is  in  incessant  dread  of  some  approach 
to  a  suggestion  of  the  deference  which  desolates 
mutual  intercourse.  Friends  must  stand  on  a  level 
footing  in  their  friendship,  or  the  foundations  of 
their  intimacy  are  rotten.  This  gulf  between  rich 
and  poor  might  be  bridged  in  the  Christian  Church ; 
but  not  even  there  is  the  chasm  spanned.  The  divisive 
power  of  money  has  to  be  recognized.  There  is  no 
escape  from  it. 

Friendship  cannot  be  soundly  based  on  any  other 
foundation  than  sincerity.  Other  qualities  may  be 
attractive — intellectual,  sympathetic  or  conversa- 
tional ;  but  as  a  basis  of  friendship,  sincerity  is  sheer 
bed  rock.  "  Friendship,"  says  George  Dawson  in 
one  of  his  essays,  "  is  the  noblest,  purest  relation 
that  can  exist  between  two  human  beings,  and  to  be 
able  to  make  a  friend  is  one  of  the  most  glorious 
distinctions  between  man  and  the  creatures  beneath 
him."  Without  sincerity,  this  noble  and  pure  rela- 
tionship is  impossible.  For,  at  long  last,  the  test  of 
friendship  is  the  sacrificial  test.  Rudyard  Kipling 
makes  one  of  his  soldiers  cry — 

"  O  where  would  I  be  when  my  throat  is  dry? 
O  where  would  I  be  when  the  bullets  fly? 
O  where  would  I  be  when  I  come  to  die? 

Why,  somewhere's  anigh  my  chum ; 

If  he's  liquor,  he'll  give  me  some; 
If  I'm  wounded  he'ij  hold  my  'ead, 
And  he'll  write  'em  'ome  when  I'm  dead. 

Gawd  send  us  a  trusty  chum  1 " 


FEIENDSHIPS  75 

Mr.  Jeffery  Farnol,  author  of  The  Broad  Highway, 
observes  that :  "  Friendship  is  a  mighty  factor  in  this 
sad  world,  since  by  friendship  comes  self-forgetful- 
ness,  and  no  man  can  do  great  works  unless  he 
forgets  self." 

Sudden  friendships  are  almost  invariably  shallow 
and  transient.  The  growth  of  true  friendship  is 
slow,  and  the  association  matures  slowly  and  firmly, 
like  the  growth  of  a  forest  oak  whose  roots  are  as 
wide-spreading  as  its  branches.  Trees  that  make  the 
most  rapid  growth  are  shallow-rooted,  and  are  the 
first  to  succumb  to  the  tempest.  This  is  pre- 
eminently true  of  friendship.  Fair-weather  friends 
are  better  not  classed  as  friends.  They  belong  to 
the  category  of  passing  acquaintances.  The  comrades 
who  can  cling  together  in  fair  weather  and  foul,  for 
richer  or  poorer,  in  sickness  or  health,  are  the  friends 
who  attain  the  splendid  heights  of  friendship's  loftiest 
possibilities. 

Friendship  does  not  demand  an  incessant  inter- 
change of  conversation.  If  you  can  be  silent  with 
a  friend  for  half  an  hour,  on  a  country  walk  or  by  a 
fireside,  without  any  sense  of  embarrassment,  your 
friendship  is  built  on  rock,  not  sand.  Who  has  not 
heard  of  Carlyle  and  Tennyson  spending  a  long  even- 
ing in  silence,  broken  only  by  the  puffing  of  their 
tobacco  pipes,  and  of  Carlyle's  farewell  at  the  door, 
"  Well,  Alfred;  it's  a  grand  evening  we've  been  hav- 
ing together?"  There  are  times  of  reserve,  and  of 
deep  emotion,  when  anything  but  silence  jars;  be- 
tween real  friends  that  communion  of  silence  is 
respected.  The  best  friendships,  like  the  deepest 
human  loves,  are  sensitive  to  strain.  George  Mac- 


76  THE  STEATEGY  OP  LIFE 

Donald's  familiar  lines  apply  to  friends  as  well  as 
to  lovers : — 

"  Alas,  how  easily  things  go  wrong. 
A  sigh  too  deep  or  a  kiss  too  long: 
Then  comes  a  mist  and  a  blinding  rain, 
And  life  is  never  the  same  again." 

There  are  times  when  words  obscure  thought,  and 
when  sympathy  can  find  no  better  expression  than 
the  pressure  of  the  hand.  James  Whitcomb  Riley's 
lines  put  this  truth  in  homely  words : — 

"  When  a  man  ain't  got  a  coat,  an'  he's  feelin'  kind  o'  blue, 
And  the  clouds  hang  dark  and  heavy,  an*  won't  let  the 

sunshine  through, 

It's  a  great  thing,  O  my  brethren,  for  a  feller  just  to  lay 
His  hand  upon  your  shoulder  in  a  friendly  sort  of  way. 

It  makes  a  man  feel  curious;  it  makes  the  tear-drops  start, 
An'  you  sort  o'  feel  a  flutter  in  the  region  of  your  heart. 
You  can't  look  up  and  meet  his  eyes;  you  don't  know 

what  to  say, 
When  his  hand  is  on  your  shoulder  in  a  friendly  sort  of 

way. 

Oh,  the  world's  a  curious  compound  with  its  h'oney  and 

its  gall, 
With  its  cares  and  bitter  crosses;  but  a  good  world,  after 

all. 
An'   a  good  God  must  have  made  it — leastways,  that's 

what  I  say, 
When  a  hand  rests  on  my  shoulder  in  a  friendly  sort  of 

way." 

The  results  of  a  friendship  test  its  value.  You 
may  judge  the  worth  of  a  friend  by  the  reaction  he 
sets  up  in  yourself.  If  you  leave  him  braced  for 
life's  struggles  by  his  companionship,  you  are  happy 


FRIENDSHIPS  77 

in  your  friend;  if  his  influence  is  to  make  you  tend 
to  the  sordid  and  ignoble,  that  friendship  is  crippling 
you  for  life's  handicap. 

There  can  be  no  friendship  between  human  beings 
except  on  the  basis  of  truth.  Between  friends  the 
cards  must  be  on  the  table,  if  I  may  use  that  phrase. 
Perfect  frankness  there  must  be  in  friendship;  but 
even  between  the  oldest  and  closest  of  friends,  tact- 
lessness, or  the  slightest  approach  to  discourtesy,  may 
be  fatal.  As  Charles  Kingsley  says :  "  Only  the 
great-hearted  can  be  true  friends;  the  mean  and 
cowardly  can  never  know  what  true  friendship 
means."  "  We  rejoice,"  said  Cicero,  "  in  the  joy  of 
friends  as  much  as  we  do  in  our  own,  and  we  are 
equally  grieved  at  their  sorrows.  The  wise  man, 
indeed,  feels  towards  his  friend  as  he  does  towards 
himself."  Friendship  does  make  these  imperious 
demands.  It  calls  for  sacrifice  and  is  repaid  by 
sacrifice.  But  the  comradeship  that  emerges  from 
a  tried  and  proved  friendship  is  reward  without 
parallel;  and  it  is  the  love  and  sympathy  of  friends 
that  puts  spring  into  our  steps  and  joy  into  our  hearts 
as  we  trudge  the  dusty,  main-traveled  roads  of  life. 

"The  timid  hand  stretched  forth  to  aid 

A  brother  in  his  need, 
A  kindly  word  in  grief's  dark  hour, 

That  proves  a  friend  indeed; 
The  plea  for  mercy  softly  breathed 

When  justice  threatens  high, 
The  sorrow  of  a  contrite  heart — 

These  things  can  never  die." 

Happy  is  the  young  man  who,  fortunate  in  his 
early  friendships,  retains  them  through  life,  losing 


78  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

none  save  by  the  "  dread  reaper."  But  friendship  is 
a  tender  plant  which  nothing  injures  so  quickly  as 
neglect.  Circumstances  separate  us  from  friends, 
and  distance  has  to  be  bridged  by  interchange  of 
letters,  and,  in  the  press  of  things,  letters  sometimes 
go  unanswered,  till  the  answer  brings  no  abiding 
satisfaction  to  the  recipient.  The  old  links  wear 
thinner,  and  time  snaps  them.  "  The  friends  we 
never  write  to  "  are  some  of  our  most  pathetic  posses- 
sions, for — 

"There's  nothing  worth  the  wear  of  winning 
But  laughter,  and  the  love  of  friends." 


XI 


ONLY  a  comparatively  small  proportion  of  our 
boys  are  ever  really  given  the  unfettered 
choice  of  a  career.  Nor,  perhaps,  is  this  so 
great  a  misfortune  as  it  appears.  Within  limits,  a 
boy  should  be  permitted  to  follow  his  bent;  but  the 
limits  are — and  must  be,  save  in  exceptional  cases — 
defined  by  the  financial  status  of  his  parents.  Even 
if  a  boy  is  in  the  fortunate  position  of  being  free  to 
enter  any  one  of  the  great  professions,  he  is  wise  to 
be  guided,  not  merely  by  his  inclinations  at  the 
moment,  but  by  his  father  or  schoolmaster,  whose 
experience  of  the  world  gives  their  judgment  a 
wisdom  youth  cannot  command.  Boys  less  fortu- 
nate in  financial  circumstances  may  have  some 
freedom  of  choice  as  to  their  occupations;  but  too 
often  an  accidental  opportunity,  an  accessible  vacancy 
in  some  business,  makes  the  vital  decision  for  a  boy. 
If  later  he  has  developed  into  a  young  man  of  inde- 
pendent spirit  and  adventurous  disposition,  he  may 
perhaps  throw  up  his  first  job  and  make  his  own 
choice  of  a  career.  All  honor  to  such  a  young  man. 
He  at  least  has  the  courage  to  try  to  shape  his  own 
destiny. 

Not  for  a  moment  do  I  believe  that  it  is  always 
79 


80  THE  8TEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

unwise  to  change  from  one  occupation  to  another. 
I  exercised  the  liberty  myself — leaving  one  occupa- 
tion which  I  disliked,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and 
entering  another  which — though  the  rewards  may 
have  been  less  generous — I  have  at  least  found  con- 
genial. The  die  is  not  cast  when  a  young  man  takes 
up  his  first  situation.  A  fortune  can  be  more  easily 
made  by  selling  baby-linen  than  by  writing  books; 
but  a  young  man  may  find  the  baby-linen  trade  un- 
endurable, and  prefer  to  forego  the  fortune.  He  is 
wise,  however,  not  to  abandon  baby-linen  for  litera- 
ture unless  the  literary  gift  has  been  granted  him. 
"  What  I  can  do  "  must  wait  on  "  What  I  would 
like  to  do,"  and  often  "  What  I  ought  to  do  "—what 
George  Eliot  called  inexorable,  inescapable  duty — 
may  overrule  both.  Still,  as  a  man  has  only  one  life 
to  live,  and  work  absorbs  so  large  a  slice  of  that 
one  life,  it  must  be  conceded  that  to  follow  a  pro- 
fession or  trade  which  is  repellent,  or  even  uncon- 
genial, is  to  be  condemned  to  a  mild  form  of  penal 
servitude. 

To  wish  to  be  engaged  in  useful  work  is  a  high 
ideal.  No  one  need  envy  the  idle  rich.  Indeed  one 
may  hope  that  the  exhaustion  of  Europe  by  war  will 
abolish  the  idle  rich  classes  altogether,  and  drive 
every  fit  man  into  some  form  of  useful  work.  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  said  that  the  habits  of  our  whole  species 
fall  into  three  classes — useful  labor,  useless  labor, 
and  idleness.  The  latter  two  are  indissolubly  linked. 
The  idle  classes  call  for  the  useless  labor — the  men- 
servants  who  devote  their  whole  lives  to  superfluous 
services,  and  the  retinue  of  useless  laborers  who  hang 
on  the  fringe  of  sports  and  amusements.  A  book- 


CHOOSING  A  CAEEEE  81 

maker's  clerk,  for  example,  may,  at  the  races,  work 
very  hard;  but  his  labor  is  vain.  It  ministers  not 
to  the  happiness  of  the  race,  but  to  its  demoralization. 

The  race  of  to-day  is  not  so  much  with  the  strong 
nations  as  with  the  disciplined  nations.  Machinery, 
the  product  of  mind,  is  displacing  brawn.  Power 
and  wealth  will  fall  to  the  nations  which  best  edu- 
cate their  young  men,  train  them  scientifically  in 
their  crafts,  and  encourage  them  (by  the  fullest  re- 
wards in  money,  leisure,  and  opportunity  of  ad- 
vancement) to  bend  all  their  mental  energies  to  their 
work. 

Fifty  years  ago,  the  prospect  of  starting  in  busi- 
ness for  himself  was  a  lodestar  to  a  young  man.  It 
should  still  be  a  young  man's  ambition  to  be  his 
own  master;  but  circumstances  have  changed  in  the 
last  half-century,  and  that  goal  is  not  quite  so  acces- 
sible as  it  was.  All  the  signs  point  to  the  old  fierce 
competitive  spirit — with  the  ethics  of  the  jungle  and 
with  war  at  its  heart — yielding  to  a  more  coopera- 
tive spirit,  with  a  mellower  view  of  human  interde- 
pendence. At  the  same  time,  a  firm  tendency  is 
manifest  in  the  direction  of  specialized  processes, 
time-saving  machinery,  multiple-shops,  and  great  de- 
partmental stores,  all  of  which,  by  effecting  econo- 
mies in  production  and  distribution,  tend  to  squeeze 
out  the  small  business  man.  Fifty  years  hence  we 
may  all  be  either  civil  servants  or  the  employees  of 
limited  liab'l'ty  companies.  Necessarily  this  tend- 
ency accentuates  all  the  risks  of  establishing  a  new 
business. 

"  All  the  professions  are  overcrowded,"  and  "  there 
is  always  room  at  the  top  of  every  profession"  are 


82  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

truisms  now  as  they  have  been  truisms  for  forty 
years.  They  need  convey  no  discouragement  to 
any  young  man  who  means  to  work  hard,  use  his 
brains,  and  employ  the  talents  he  possesses.  A  few 
"  plum  "  posts  may  still  be  secured  by  influence  only, 
but  they  are  few,  and  they  are  a  diminishing  quantity. 
World-competition  will  compel  employers  to  open 
their  highest  posts  to  the  best  men.  Talent  must 
not  run  to  waste.  Competence  commands  its  proper 
place. 

Merit  tells  now  as  it  never  told;  and  even  better 
times  are  coming  for  young  men  with  ability,  enter- 
prise, and  ambition.  Only  slackness,  incompetency, 
misfortune,  and  ill-health  keep  young  men  from  high 
attainment.  The  barriers  to  progress  are  down. 

I  do  not  propose  to  survey  the  professions  and  the 
rewards  they  offer.  To  a  youth  of  marked  ability, 
who  can  live  without  earning  his  own  livelihood  until 
he  is  nearly  thirty,  the  Bar  offers  tempting  vistas. 
The  profession  makes  heavy  demands  on  brain,  nerve, 
and  physique;  but  success,  if  it  comes,  is  often 
dazzling,  and  always  remunerative.  The  medical 
profession  offers  great  scope — especially  nowadays, 
when  the  shortage  of  doctors  is  a  positive  peril  to 
the  community.  Again,  it  must  be  said  that  the  life 
of  a  medical  practitioner  is  hard. 

Analytical  chemistry  and  electrical  engineering 
are  comparatively  new  professions  which  offer  il- 
limitable opportunities — especially  for  young  men 
who  are  studious  and  possessed  of  initiative.  The 
field  for  young  architects  and  surveyors  seems  to 
have  no  boundaries.  Banking  has  in  the  past  dangled 
the  glamour  of  extreme  respectability  before  the  eyes 


CHOOSING  A  CAEEEE  83 

of  young  men;  but  the  financial  rewards  have  been 
paltry  in  the  extreme.  Accountancy,  to  a  young 
man  with  an  aptitude  for  figures,  offers  a  fair  chance ; 
but  the  work  is  monotonous,  and  calls  for  close,  un- 
remitting desk  work.  If  he  is  a  really  good  mathe- 
matician, a  young  man  may  achieve  notable  success 
as  an  actuary.  The  plums  of  the  profession  are  few ; 
but  then  there  are  very  few  good  actuaries  to  capture 
the  plums.  This  profession  calls  for  a  positive  genius 
for  figures,  and  a  joyous  zest  for  abstruse  calcula- 
tions. 

Art,  music,  journalism,  literature — what  shall  I 
say  of  these?  They  are  vocations,  like  the  Christian 
ministry,  upon  which,  as  Henry  Ward  Beecher  said, 
a  young  man  should  not  enter  unless  he  receives  a 
call  from  within  and  a  push  from  without.  Art  is 
a  fickle  mistress,  who  bestows  her  smiles  and  rewards 
capriciously.  Music  spells  drudgery  even  to  genius. 
The  great  composers  had,  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
to  accept  the  dreary  donkey  work  of  teaching. 
Journalism  has  been  described  as  "  an  excellent  pro- 
fession to  get  out  of;"  yet  journalists  derive  a  joy 
from  their  work  which  rarely  wears  stale.  Here, 
again,  the  work  is  exacting,  precarious,  and  unre- 
warding. Commercialized  journalism  has  robbed  the 
profession  of  much  of  its  old  lustre,  and  what  was 
once  a  free  Bohemian  life  has  been  converted  into 
a  somewhat  monotonous  routine,  relieved  only  when 
a  journalist  has  specialized  and  become  captain  of 
his  soul.  Literature — into  which  journalism  often 
proffers  a  right  of  way — is  like  politics,  a  noble  pro- 
fession in  its  higher  branches,  but  a  life  of  unre- 
deemed slavery  for  the  man  who  cannot  emerge 


84  THE  STEATEGY  OP  LIFE 

from  the  ruck.  A  third-rate  author  may  talk  of  his 
art,  but  he  eats  the  bread  of  penury. 

Many  young  men  despise  a  trade,  and  by  doing 
so  betray  their  foolishness.  Most  of  the  skilled 
trades  offer  fairer  opportunities  for  success,  and 
better  earnings  in  many  cases  than  clerical  occupa- 
tions do.  A  good  mechanic  is  never  short  of  a  good 
job  at  good  wages.  Carpenters,  bricklayers,  plumb- 
ers, painters,  and  electricians  are  highly  paid  and  in 
constant  demand.  By  their  Trades  Union  regula- 
tions they  control  their  own  conditions  of  employ- 
ment. The  printing  trades  can  always  absorb  the 
supply  of  intelligent  young  men  who  seek  to  enter 
them,  and,  if  the  work  does  involve  strain,  it  is  al- 
ways interesting,  and  the  pay  is  good.  Compositors 
all  seem  to  reach  a  very  high  degree  of  intelligence, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  journalists  are  so  often 
recruited  from  the  composing  frames.  I  have  over- 
heard compositors  discuss  abstruse  subjects  with  an 
acumen  and  breadth  of  view  which  would  have  put 
many  a  college  debating  society  to  shame. 

If  he  enters  a  trade,  a  young  man  should  do  so 
with  a  stout  determination  to  make  himself  a  com- 
plete master  of  his  craft,  and  to  take  a  real  pride 
in  its  traditions.  An  expert  craftsman  is  entitled  to 
share  the  joys  of  an  artist  over  any  piece  of  work 
into  which  he  has  put  all  his  skill,  knowledge,  and 
enthusiasm.  A  well-built  wall,  a  well-made  cup- 
board, a  sound  piece  of  plumber's  work,  or  a  taste- 
fully set  "  stick  "  of  type,  is  as  worthy  a  product  of 
man's  skill  as  a  painting,  a  statue,  a  sonnet,  or  a 
sonata. 

The  healthiest  and  perhaps  the  happiest  occupa- 


CHOOSING  A  CAREER  86 

tion  for  a  man  is  farming.  Man  was  meant  to  be 
a  farmer,  and  land-hunger  is  his  most  natural  appe- 
tite. Modern  farming  is,  however,  a  highly  scientific 
business,  and  must  become  more  so  in  the  future. 
The  old  rule-of-thumb  and  hand-to-mouth  methods 
of  agriculture  are  destined  to  pass  away,  perhaps  in 
our  own  generation.  Motor-traction,  mechanical 
appliances,  chemical  fertilization,  intercropping,  in- 
tensive culture,  with  all  the  new  apparatus  for  dairy- 
farming,  have  transformed  agriculture,  and  almost 
exalted  it  into  a  learned  profession.  While  large 
farming  with  ample  capital  is  in  the  ascendant,  the 
small  holding  for  market-gardening,  carried  out  on 
the  French  method,  presents  opportunities  for  ener- 
getic young  men;  especially  if  the  French  plan  of 
grouping  the  holdings  around  an  attractive  village 
offering  some  social  life  is  adopted  and  facilitated 
by  Government  action.  Fruit-farming  on  scientific 
lines  is  another  attractive  occupation  for  young  men 
of  intelligence,  but  it,  too,  needs  to  be  taken  very 
seriously  and  made  at  once  a  study  and  a  hobby. 
Silviculture — the  cultivation  of  trees  for  timber — is 
generally  associated  with  estate  management;  but  if 
afforestation  is  taken  seriously  in  hand  by  the  Gov- 
ernment, a  healthy  and  delightful  occupation  will  be 
opened  to  young  men  of  good  education.  Horti- 
culture is  almost  too  delightful  an  occupation  to  be 
made  a  business.  It  ought  to  be  spared  us  as  a  God- 
given  recreation. 


XII 

BUSINESS  APTITUDE 

A  SOUND  memory  and  the  power  of  concen- 
tration are  the  first  attributes  of  success  in 
business.  Without  them  a  young  man  is 
handicapped.  While  some  people  have  a  good 
memory  as  a  natural  endowment — and  they  should 
count  themselves  fortunate — a  defective  memory  can 
be  trained  by  care  and  application.  Learning  poetry 
by  heart  is  excellent  gymnastic  exercise  for  the 
memory;  but  scientific  systems  of  memory-training 
have  been  introduced,  and  have  helped  many  to  over- 
come shortcomings  in  this  respect.  Mnemonics  have 
their  advocates,  and  the  various  memory  systems 
have  helped  thousands  of  men,  young  and  old,  to 
develop  their  powers  of  memory.  At  all  cost  a 
reliable  memory  should  be  acquired  by  a  young  busi- 
ness man.  Without  it,  he  will  flounder  in  the  lower 
ranges  of  commercial  life. 

Concentration  of  mind  demands  self-discipline. 
Psychologists,  in  describing  the  working  of  the  mind, 
liken  it  to  a  circle,  the  centre  of  which  is  the  point 
of  concentration.  Around  the  circumference  are 
thoughts,  known  as  marginal  thoughts,  which  persist 
in  obtruding  themselves  upon  the  central  idea.  Only 
by  concentration  of  mental  effort  are  the  marginal 
thoughts  kept  outside  the  circumference.  This  ac- 

86 


BUSINESS  APTITUDE  87 

counts  for  the  incapacity  of  the  undisciplined  mind 
to  concentrate  on  an  idea  or  a  piece  of  work.  The 
young  man  who  cannot  keep  thoughts  of  cricket  or 
football,  or  any  other  distracting  interest,  from  ob- 
truding themselves  when  he  is  at  work  on  figures 
or  correspondence  or  any  other  business  duty,  is 
dissipating  mental  energy.  No  one  gets  far  in  life 
without  concentration.  Things  done  by  halves  are 
badly  done,  and  often  have  to  be  done  again,  or  re- 
vised by  some  one  who  has  the  power  of  concentra- 
tion. Whatever  is  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing 
whole-heartedly.  I  am  conscious  that  what  I  am 
saying  is  platitudinous;  but  first  principles  are  al- 
ways platitudes.  Some  one  has  said  that  even  the  Ten 
Commandments  are  merely  platitudes;  but  they  are 
the  fundamentals  of  true  human  relationship. 

Early  in  his  business  life  a  young  man  should 
recognize  that  all  necessary  labor  is  dignified.  Little 
duties  are  irksome;  but  if  they  are  necessary  they 
fall  into  the  economy  of  organized  life — and  how- 
ever trivial  they  may  seem,  they  can  be  done  with- 
out loss  of  dignity.  I  have  known  the  editor  of  a 
great  newspaper  leave  his  desk  to  fit  a  new  wire  into 
an  electric  switch  that  had  fused.  The  little  acci- 
dent had  thrown  a  room  into  darkness,  and  at  a 
crucial  moment  was  delaying  the  work  of  two  or 
three  men.  An  electrician  might  have  been  called 
in,  but  that  would  have  spelled  half  an  hour's  delay. 
So  the  Chief  applied  his  knowledge  of  electric  light- 
ing, and,  mounting  a  step-ladder,  did  the  little  me- 
chanical duty  himself.  There  are  times  when  to 
serve  as  a  messenger  is  not  undignified  work  for  a 
highly-placed  senior  in  an  office.  Whatever  has  to  be 


88  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

done  may  be  done  without  any  sacrifice  of  prestige, 
however  humble  the  little  task  may  be. 

A  certain  merchant-prince  often  stops  during  his 
daily  round  of  his  warehouse  to  pick  up  and  tie 
together  odd  bits  of  string  that  might  be  lying  about. 
A  sense  of  economy  made  him  hate  the  waste  of  even 
trivial  oddments,  and  though  his  own  time  was  in- 
valuable, he  felt  it  worth  while  to  show  his  employees 
that  he  thought  no  work  beneath  him.  President 
Roosevelt,  holiday-making  on  a  ranch,  blacked  the 
boots  of  every  one  in  the  family.  No  one  thought 
that  to  do  so  was  derogatory  to  his  dignity,  but  they 
asked  him  not  to  do  it  again — "  because  he  had 
blacked  the  boots  so  badly ! " 

Punctuality  ranks  among  the  highest  of  virtues  in 
business  life.  A  young  man  who  is  erratic  in  his 
hour  of  arrival  is  usually  unreliable  in  his  work. 
Punctuality  in  keeping  appointments  oils  the  wheels 
of  business.  Without  it,  time  is  frittered  away.  If 
you  have  an  engagement,  be  on  the  spot  a  minute  or 
two  before  the  time.  A  few  minutes  late  may  upset 
a  busy  man's  time-table,  and  waste  the  time  of  half 
a  dozen  other  people  who  have  subsequent  appoint- 
ments with  him. 

Arrive  punctually  at  business  in  the  morning,  and 
again  after  lunch.  Sometimes  it  is  not  possible  to 
be  as  punctual  in  leaving  business.  Do  not  be  im- 
patient if  you  are  delayed  a  little  at  the  end  of  the 
day.  The  young  man  whose  eyes  are  everlastingly 
on  the  clock,  and  who  grumbles  if  he  cannot  be  off 
the  premises  before  it  has  done  striking,  is  generally 
known  as  a  mere  clock-servant;  and  that  does  not 
mark  him  out  for  early  promotion.  When  Charles 


BUSINESS  APTITUDE  89 

Lamb  was  admonished  for  arriving  late  at  the  India 
Office,  he  stuttered  out  his  famous  excuse  that  he 
made  up  for  coming  late  by  going  away  early.  But 
Lamb  was  a  chartered  libertine,  and  the  British  India 
Office  was  a  lotus-land  where  it  was  always  after- 
noon. 

Little  carelessnesses  are  inexcusable  in  business, 
and  a  junior  should  be  vigilant  against  committing 
them.  I  remember  a  lawyer's  office  being  dislocated 
for  three  days  by  a  general  search  for  a  missing  copy 
of  a  document.  It  had  been  withdrawn  from  a  parcel 
of  deeds  for  inspection  months  before,  and  then, 
when  finished  with,  been  carelessly  packed  away  in 
a  wrong  parcel.  Nearly  every  parcel  in  the  safety 
vault  had  to  be  opened,  examined,  and  packed  again 
before  the  document  was  recovered.  That  act  of 
carelessness  of  a  junior  clerk  caused  endless  work 
for  the  whole  staff,  and  endangered  a  litigation  case 
which  was  coming  before  the  Courts. 

Shorthand,  if  not  an  essential,  is  eminently  useful 
to  a  junior  in  a  business  house.  Even  though  he 
may  not  have  to  use  it  in  the  ordinary  course  of  his 
work,  shorthand  is  handy  for  making  notes  as  aids 
to  memory,  or  to  take  down  the  exact  terms  of  an 
instruction.  So  with  typewriting — it  is  distinctly  an 
advantage  to  be  able  to  type  out  a  letter  or  a  memo- 
randum. Shorthand  and  typewriting  are  now,  how- 
ever, specialties  of  which  girls  have  proved  them- 
selves supremely  capable,  and  have,  indeed,  almost 
established  a  monopoly.  I  have  even  heard  it  plau- 
sibly argued  that  too  proficient  a  knowledge  of  short- 
hand and  typing  is  an  actual  handicap  to  a  young 
man  entering  business,  as  he  runs  the  risk  of  being 


90  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

put  upon  this  more  or  less  mechanical  work  and  kept 
at  it — without  much  hope  of  promotion. 

Observation  is  an  unfailing  aid  to  business  apti- 
tude. A  young  man  should  keep  his  eyes  open  and 
observe  all  he  can  of  the  processes  of  business.  If 
he  is  content  to  know  only  just  what  is  done  in  his 
own  department  he  will  stay  there.  What  he  ought 
to  do  is  to  master  all  the  details  of  his  own  branch, 
and  learn,  incidentally,  all  that  he  can  about  other 
departments  in  the  business  house.  Opportunities 
for  promotion  come  unexpectedly ;  and  the  wider  the 
range  of  a  young  man's  business  knowledge,  the 
greater  are  his  chances  of  early  preferment. 

Every  business  has  its  secrets,  and  every  com- 
mercial house  expects  its  employees  to  keep  their 
own  confidence.  The  affairs  of  a  business  should 
not  be  discussed  outside.  A  junior  clerk  often  has 
access  to  letters  and  papers  containing  information 
that  ought  not  to  be  noised  abroad.  He  must  learn 
to  keep  silent,  and  to  be  worthy  of  confidence.  A 
junior  should  be  as  economical  of  stationery  and 
materials  as  if  they  were  his  own  property.  Waste 
of  paper,  string,  electric  light,  postages  and  odd  ex- 
penses, has  to  be  obviated;  and  a  young  man  who 
shows  himself  careful  of  his  employer's  materials 
earns  appreciation. 

As  a  general  rule,  a  young  man  who  shows  him- 
self really  eager  to  fulfil  his  duties  has  rarely  to  put 
up  a  serious  fight  for  his  rights.  They  get  respected 
without  assertion  on  his  part. 


XIII 

PERSEVERANCE 

PPORTUNITY,"  says  a  Latin  proverb, 
"  has  hair  in  front;  if  you  seize  her  by  the 
forelock,  you  may  hold  her;  but  if  suf- 
fered to  escape,  not  Jupiter  himself  can  catch  her  up." 
Perseverance  is  the  exploitation  of  opportunity  to 
the  uttermost.  An  apt  and  descriptive  word  for 
perseverance  has  been  coined;  it  is  referred  to  as 
stick-at-it-ive-ness.  Reminting  a  word  or  a  phrase 
often  gives  it  fresh  currency  as  verbal  coinage.  Dr. 
John  Kelman,  who  has  only  recently  transferred  his 
residence  from  Edinburgh  to  New  York,  applied  the 
Scriptural  words,  "  faint,  yet  pursuing,"  to  the  per- 
severing soldiers  in  France;  but  he  put  it  into  their 
slang,  and  said  they  were  "  fed  up  but  sticking  it." 
All  history  is  a  record  of  human  persistency,  and 
scarcely  a  single  possession  treasured  to-day  is  not 
due  to  the  perseverance  of  some  distant  ancestor. 
Every  worthy  achievement  is  the  outcome  of  per- 
severance, the  reward  of  perseverance.  Our  liberties 
were  won  by  the  perseverance  of  men  who  fought 
down  ancient  tyrannies,  and  the  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity towards  which  civilization  is  now  sweeping 
steadily  will  be  a  heritage  from  men  who  refused  to 
believe  that — 

"  The  rich  man  in  his  castle, 

The  poor  man  in  his  gate, 
God  made  them  high  and  lowly, 
And  ordered  their  estate." 

91 


92  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

The  rich  treasures  of  literature,  the  amazing 
triumphs  of  science,  the  choice  products  of  art,  were 
born  of  perseverance.  Capacity  to  stick-at-it  lifts 
a  man  out  of  the  ruck.  Even  genius  has  been  de- 
scribed as  merely  a  capacity  for  taking  infinite  pains. 
Giotto's  hand-drawn  circle  that,  attracting  the  notice 
of  the  Pope,  led  the  artist  to  fortune,  was  the  result 
of  patient  perseverance  in  freehand  drawing. 

The  story  of  John  Lockhart's  first  glimpse  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott  is  almost  threadbare  by  much  usage, 
but  it  is  still  a  staple  example  of  perseverance.  Scott, 
whose  early  success  had  made  him  a  rich  man,  rashly 
embarked  on  a  business  enterprise  that  failed  dis- 
astrously and  involved  the  novelist  in  financial  ruin. 
He  was  too  honorable  to  escape  liability  by  seizing 
upon  a  legal  technicality  that  would  have  freed  him. 
Instead,  Scott,  well  advanced  in  years,  set  himself 
to  pay  the  debts  of  his  firm,  and  to  restore  his  own 
fallen  fortunes  by  writing  more  novels.  Lockhart, 
a  law-student,  had  his  lodgings  opposite  Scott's 
rooms,  and  from  his  window  he  could  see  under  a 
blind  a  hand — only  a  right  hand — writing  hard  all 
day  long,  and  often  into  the  night.  It  was  the  hand 
of  Scott  penning  the  novels  that  were  to  restore  his 
self-esteem.  Upon  Lockhart's  mind  that  hand  drove 
home  the  indelible  lesson  of  perseverance :  and  later, 
when  he  had  married  Sir  Walter's  daughter,  and  was 
writing  Scott's  biography,  he  told  the  now  familiar 
story. 

Charles  Darwin  called  one  day  on  his  publisher 
with  the  manuscript  of  a  small  book  that  he  wanted 
published.  He  explained  that  he  did  not  imagine 
that  it  would  ever  have  a  large  sale  or  be  in  any 


PEBSEVEBANCE  93 

sense  popular,  but  he  thought  it  was  a  useful  con- 
tribution to  scientific  knowledge.  Anyway,  he  said, 
it  was  the  product  of  a  quarter  of  a  century's  patient 
research.  The  book  was  on  earthworms,  whose 
amazing  functions  in  the  creation  of  fertile  soil 
Darwin  explains  to  the  world  in  a  perfectly  fascinat- 
ing little  classic.  For  years  the  great  scientist  had 
studied  the  operations  of  earthworms,  and  divined 
the  secret  of  their  mysterious  borings.  Now,  through 
Darwin's  laborious  perseverance,  we  have  a  profound 
respect  for  the  humble  worm,  and  shrink  from  tread- 
ing on  one  or  cutting  it  with  a  spade  in  digging. 
He  made  us  realize  our  obligations  to  the  little  crea- 
tures, and  left  us  incapable  of  scoffing  at  Browning's 
lines : — 

"The  loving  worm  within  its  clod 
Were  diviner  than  a  loveless  God 
Amid  His  worlds." 

The  late  Sir  William  Crookes  had  a  high  ideal  of 
perseverance.  "  To  stop  short  in  any  research  that 
bids  fair  to  widen  the  gates  of  knowledge,  to  recoil 
from  fear  of  difficulty  or  adverse  criticism,"  he  said, 
"  is  to  bring  reproach  on  science."  How  faithfully 
he  lived  up  to  his  own  high  standard  of  perseverance, 
all  the  world  knows.  We  owe  to  it  the  X-rays, 
which  have  multiplied  the  powers  of  surgery  and 
lifted  diagnosis  to  a  new  plane  of  certainty.  While 
experimenting  with  the  electrical  apparatus  which 
he  had  invented  and  given  the  name  "  the  Crookes 
tube,"  Professor  Roentgen  accidentally  interposed  his 
hand  between  the  screen  and  the  tube,  and  to  his 
amazement  saw  on  the  screen  the  shadow  of  the 


94  THE  8TEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

bones  of  his  hand.  Thus  by  mere  chance  another 
investigator  made  the  discovery  of  Roentgen  photog- 
raphy, reaping  where  Sir  William  Crookes'  persever- 
ance had  sown.  To  the  same  indefatigable  worker 
we  owe  the  discovery  of  radium  by  M.  and  Madame 
Curie,  whose  investigations  were  made  possible  by 
Sir  William  Crookes'  persevering  research  into  the 
radio-active  properties  of  uranium  salts. 

When  German  Gothas  were  raining  bomb-shells 
on  London,  the  people  were  in  no  mood  to  think  of 
the  patient  and  persevering  endeavors  of  the  pioneers 
of  aviation  by  aeroplane.  But  the  story  of  the 
Brothers  Wright,  who  saw  in  the  invention  of  the 
internal  combustion  gas-engine  the  conquest  of  the 
air — Nature's  last  element  to  submit  to  man's  yoke — 
is  a  record  of  perseverance.  In  a  little  engine-shed, 
in  Dayton,  Ohio,  these  two  engineers  worked  with 
undying  zeal  to  make  the  first  heavier-than-air  flying 
machine.  Failure  followed  failure,  but  they  stuck 
at  it  till  at  last  the  first  reluctant  aeroplane  made  its 
first  mad  plunge  through  the  air.  From  that  mo- 
ment started  the  shrinkage  of  earthly  distance,  until 
to-day  the  whole  world  is  becoming  just  a  parish. 

In  every  phase  of  life,  men,  by  their  perseverance, 
have  overwhelmed  difficulties,  broadened  the  range 
of  knowledge,  and  carried  further  man's  triumph 
over  natural  forces.  Edison  with  the  vacuum  electric 
lamp,  and  later  with  the  phonograph,  won  his  vic- 
tories by  patient  persistence.  David  Livingstone 
fought  his  way  into  Central  Africa,  and  opened  the 
dark  continent  for  commerce  and  civilization  by 
sheer  perseverance. 

John  Burns,  an  engineer  stranded  on  the  West 


PEESEVEEANCE  95 

African  coast,  found  a  copy  of  Adam  Smith's 
Wealth  of  Nations  in  the  sand,  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  that  knowledge  of  political  economy  which 
made  him  preeminent  among  Labor  leaders,  and 
finally  landed  him  on  the  Treasury  Bench  and  in  the 
Privy  Council  of  Great  Britain. 

Genius  may  be  denied  us;  we  may  even  possess 
only  one  talent ;  but  perseverance  opens  the  doors  of 
opportunity,  or  ministers  to  the  gladness  of  the 
world. 

By  perseverance,  man,  in  some  fields,  has  virtually 
become  a  creator.  It  is  argued  that  all  that  man  can 
do  is  to  move  matter  about ;  but  movement  of  matter 
is  a  process  in  transformation,  amounting  almost  to 
creation.  The  chemist  who  distils  perfumes  from 
coal-tar  may  have  succeeded  only  in  separating  one 
element  from  another  in  matter ;  but  he  has  achieved 
a  modern  miracle. 

The  Shirley  poppies  in  all  their  delicate  ranges 
of  color  are  all  derived  from  the  common  red  poppy 
of  the  cornfield.  But  their  name  enshrines  the 
memory  of  one  man's  perseverance.  It  was  the 
Vicar  of  Shirley  who  found  a  wind-sown  poppy 
growing  in  one  of  his  flower-beds.  A  ring  of  cream 
on  the  red  petals  of  the  poppy  attracted  the  keen 
horticulturist's  attention,  and  he  set  himself  to  culti- 
vate the  curious  departure  from  type.  In  the  process 
of  years,  by  tender  nursing,  the  patient  vicar  had 
produced  a  cream  poppy,  and  the  Shirley  poppy,  in 
all  its  variety  of  hues,  was  the  ultimate  outcome 
of  his  assiduity. 

A  Polish  Jew,  David  Lubin,  while  farming  in 
California,  saw  the  need  for  an  international  clearing- 


96  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

house  of  agricultural  information.  He  was  per- 
sistent in  advocating  the  idea,  but  could  find  no  one 
far-sighted  enough  to  promote  it.  At  last  he  heard 
of  the  King  of  Italy's  genuine  interest  in  agriculture, 
and  by  persevering  efforts  he  secured  an  interview 
with  the  monarch.  Lubin  had  no  dress-suit  for  the 
royal  audience,  and  the  King  was  evidently  disturbed 
by  the  unconventional  appearance  of  a  visitor  in  his 
business  suit.  But  having  done  so  much  by  his  per- 
severance, Lubin  was  bent  on  being  heard.  "  King," 
he  said,  "  some  folks  may  think  you  a  second-class 
monarch.  I  don't.  I've  got  a  scheme.  If  you  adopt 
it,  it  will  make  you  a  first-class  king."  What  the 
Italian  King  said  in  reply  goes  undisclosed,  but  Lubin 
left  the  palace  with  his  scheme  well  on  the  way  to 
being  an  accomplished  fact.  Victor  Emanuel  erected 
the  Agricultural  Institute  in  the  Villa  Borghia,  at 
which  fifty-three  nations  are  now  represented. 

When  Sir  Ernest  Shackleton  returned  from  his 
great  South  Polar  exploration,  he  displayed  cine- 
matograph films  showing  himself  and  two  com- 
panions pulling  a  heavily-loaded  sledge  over  the 
snowy  waste.  For  half  a  minute,  a  minute,  two 
minutes,  the  film  ran  on,  showing  no  change  in  the 
monotonous  scene.  Then  the  audience  got  impatient. 
Shackleton  smiled.  "  Exactly,"  he  said,  "  you  are 
tired  of  it  in  two  minutes.  We  went  on  doing  it 
for  twenty-eight  days.  And  we  were  always  hungry. 
We  scarcely  talked  of  anything  but  eating,  and  we 
were  always  discussing  the  dinner  we  would  have 
when  we  got  back  to  civilization.  We  generally  de- 
cided to  begin  it  with  two  steaks  as  hors  d'oeuvre." 
The  interjection  brought  home  to  the  audience  the 


PERSEVERANCE  97 

almost  unexampled  perseverance  called  for  in  Polar 
exploration. 

Ten  years  ago,  William  Willett,  a  London  builder, 
struck  a  new  idea.  He  thought  it  was  brilliant,  but 
it  was  laughed  to  scorn.  He  persevered  with  it, 
published  pamphlets  upon  it,  worried  Chambers  of 
Commerce  to  discuss  it,  stirred  up  correspondence  in 
newspapers  upon  it,  until  Willett's  Daylight-Saving 
Scheme  was  forced  upon  every  one's  notice.  Willett 
died  while  he  was  still  dubbed  a  crank  for  imagining 
that  people  would  be  so  absurd  as  to  tamper  with 
solar  time.  Now  almost  all  the  world  puts  its  clock 
forward  an  hour  in  spring  and  back  again  in  the 
autumn,  and  Willett's  "  Summer  Time  "  has  become 
all  but  universal.  Without  Willett's  perseverance 
the  benefit  of  an  extra  hour's  daylight  in  summer 
might  never  have  been  enjoyed. 

The  habit  of  perseverance  involves  self-conquest 
and  stern  discipline.  It  is  the  secret  of  success  in 
business  and  profession  alike.  Without  it  the  world 
would  stand  still. 

"  Better  to  strive  and  climb, 

And  never  reach  the  goal, 
Than  to  drift  along  with  time — 

An  aimless,  worthless  soul. 
Aye,  better  to  climb  and  fall, 

Or  sow  though  the  yield  is  small, 
Than  to  throw  away  day  after  day, 

And  never  strive  at  all." 


XIV 
TRUTH  AND  TRUTHFULNESS 

AT  the  base  of  all  fine  character  lie  truth  and 
truthfulness.  The  highest  education  looks 
to  truth  as  the  supreme  thing  in  life. 

"  Truth,"  says  Emerson,  "  is  our  only  armor  in 
all  passages  of  life  and  death."  Of  all  the  virtues 
truthfulness  has  most  enemies.  The  little  lies  of 
civilization  encircle  us  from  childhood.  A  child 
hears  his  mother  tell  a  servant  that  she  is  "  not  at 
home"  when  an  unwelcome  visitor  calls,  and  the 
childish  mind  is  mystified.  A  little  boy  in  a  diffi- 
culty— caught  in  some  little  act  of  wrong-doing — 
finds  in  evasion  or  falsehood  a  first  line  of  defence. 
The  schoolboy  who  said  that  "  a  lie  is  an  abomina- 
tion unto  the  Lord,  but  a  very  present  help  in 
trouble"  had  yet  to  make  the  discovery  that  truth- 
fulness is  the  acid  test  of  moral  courage. 

Untruth  fulness  is  the  first  stage  of  insincerity, 
because  a  lie  strikes  at  the  very  foundations  of  human 
relationships.  Without  truthfulness,  confidence  be- 
tween man  and  man  is  unthinkable.  At  an  early 
stage  in  his  business  career,  a  young  man  may  dis- 
cover that  the  commercial  ethic  does  not  condemn 
deception,  and  that  "  tricks  of  the  trade  "  are  em- 
ployed which  strike  at  the  basis  of  truth.  His  success 
in  life  may  seem  to  depend  on  his  willingness  to 

98 


TEUTH  AND  TBUTHFULNESS  99 

stifle  his  conscience  and  comply  with  the  usages  of 
the  world  into  which  he  is  plunged.  But  moral 
courage  always  wins  respect  in  the  long  run,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  character  for  truth  and  rectitude 
in  business  is  worth  all  it  costs.  More  and  more 
the  business  world  is  recognizing  that  honesty  and 
truthfulness  are  the  bases  of  confidence,  and  that  the 
man  whose  word  is  his  bond,  and  always  to  be  trusted, 
is  the  bulwark  of  prosperous  trade.  "  I  had  rather 
suffer  for  speaking  the  truth,"  said  John  Pym,  "  than 
that  the  truth  should  suffer  for  want  of  my  speak- 
ing." 

But  truth  is  something  far  greater  than  veracity  in 
speech.  It  is  a  matter  of  honesty  in  thought  as  well 
as  in  utterance. 

"  They  are  slaves  who  will  not  choose 
Hatred,  scoffing,  and  abuse, 
Rather  than  in  silence  shrink 
From  the  truth  they  needs  must  think." 

One  thing  is  sure,  as  F.  W.  Robertson  said :  "  It  is 
not  for  a  man  to  say  which  of  a  hundred  jarring 
creeds — all  plausible — constitute  truth,  but  it  is  for 
each  of  us  to  do  the  right  that  lies  before  us. 
Whatever  else  may  be  wrong,  it  must  be  right  to  be 
pure,  to  be  just  and  tender  and  merciful  and  honest. 
It  must  be  right  to  love  and  to  deny  oneself.  Let  a 
man  do  the  will  of  God,  and  he  shall  know." 

Pilate's  question,  "What  is  truth?"  has  rung 
down  the  centuries,  and  received  a  thousand  answers. 
The  question  was  put  to  Jesus — the  very  standard 
of  truth — and  we  may  profitably  take  notice  of  the 
place  Jesus  gave  to  truth  in  His  scale  of  valuations. 


100  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

The  highest  courage  that  can  be  displayed  is  the 
courage  to  tell  unpopular  truths.  Jesus  manifested 
that  courage.  With  what  relentless  truthfulness  He 
told  His  followers  of  the  penalties  of  discipleship. 
"  Whosoever  doth  not  bear  his  cross,  and  come  after 
Me  cannot  be  My  disciple."  No  wonder  (as  St. 
John  records)  the  multitudes  disappeared  when 
Jesus  told  the  naked  truth  so  bluntly.  The  moment 
of  this  candid  utterance  dates  the  beginning  of  the 
unpopularity  of  Jesus.  His  via  dolorosa  began  there. 
To  withhold  the  hardest  truth  was  impossible  to 
Him.  A  lie,  even  a  silence  suppressing  the  truth  was 
outside  His  scheme  of  things. 

History  is  crammed  with  instances  of  men  who 
have  burked  the  truth  and,  in  the  long  run,  suffered 
eclipse.  But  a  few  gorgeous  examples  of  men  with 
the  courage  to  state  the  worst  and  risk  the  con- 
sequences illumine  history's  pages.  Garibaldi's 
heroism  was  not  greatest  in  the  battle-fields  when 
actually  fighting  against  Austria  for  Italy's  liberation. 
It  was  shown  in  the  magnificently  courageous  truth- 
fulness of  his  call  for  his  red-shirt  volunteers :  "  I 
call  you  not  to  honors  and  rewards,  but  to  forced 
marches,  short  rations,  bloody  battles,  wounds,  im- 
prisonments, death."  And  the  men  who  answered 
that  call  were  men  whose  moral  courage  proved  in- 
vincible. They  emancipated  Italy. 

Lord  Kitchener  showed  the  same  moral  intrepidity 
when,  as  war  broke  out  in  August,  1914,  he  warned 
the  volunteers  that  the  struggle  would  last  three 
years.  He  could  not  descend  to  deception.  England 
was  dreaming  of  a  short  war — talking  of  a  march 
to  Berlin  as  if  it  were  to  be  a  gleeful  picnic — but 


TBUTH  AND  TRUTHFULNESS         101 

Lord  Kitchener  knew  the  truth,  and  would  not  dis- 
guise it.  He  had  a  standard  of  truth,  as  well  as  of 
valor,  and  he  raised  it  high  without  counting  the 
cost. 

An  unpalatable  truth  is  always  unpopular,  and 
men  who  take  the  risk  of  telling  unpleasant  truths 
take  their  lives  in  their  hands.  Twenty  years  ago 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  believed  that  the  Boer  War  was 
an  unrighteous  war.  He  said  so  boldly,  and  narrowly 
escaped  death  at  the  hands  of  angry  mobs  for  his 
temerity.  It  required  just  the  same  courage  to  tell 
the  working-men  of  England  that  their  drinking 
habits  were  as  much  an  enemy  to  England  as  the 
German  army  itself;  but  Mr.  Lloyd  George  did  not 
shrink  from  the  duty  truth  laid  upon  him.  A  hero 
has  been  defined  as  "  one  who  taking  both  reputa- 
tion and  life  in  his  hand  will,  with  perfect  urbanity, 
dare  the  gibbet  and  the  mob  by  the  perfect  truth  of 
his  speech  and  the  rectitude  of  his  behavior." 

In  every  age  the  fight  for  truth  has  to  be  refought. 
"  The  thoughts  of  men  are  widen'd  with  the  process 
of  the  suns,"  and  truth  is  never  static.  As  knowledge 
grows,  truth  changes,  and  only  cowards  shrink  from 
adjusting  their  perception  of  truth  to  the  new  facets. 
There  is  an  allegory  of  a  hunter  who  strove  to  scale 
a  steep  mountain  in  quest  of  the  white  bird  of 
truth,  which  he  believed  made  its  habitation  on  the 
summit.  His  ascent  was  painful,  arduous,  protracted. 
The  sun  and  the  winds  beat  upon  him  as  he  cut 
his  steps  laboriously  up  the  sloping  rock.  From 
the  crannies  in  the  wall  ugly  creatures  peeped  out 
and  tempted  him  aside.  He  knew  that  men  follow- 
ing him  would  curse  him  for  the  clumsiness  of  ffie 


102  THE  STRATEGY  OP  LIFE 

steps  he  had  cut  at  such  infinite  pain;  but  he  toiled 
on  till,  reaching  the  summit,  he  fell  exhausted.  He 
lay  dying,  alone  and  desolate;  but  as  the  breath  left 
his  body  a  single  white  feather  from  the  bird  of  truth 
floated  through  the  air  and  fell  upon  his  breast.  The 
allegory  embodies  a  truth  for  all  time.  But  Lowell 
supplies  a  correcting  idea  in  his  familiar  lines : — 

"  Careless   seems   the  great  avenger :   history's  pages  but 

record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness,  'twixt  old  systems  and 

the  word ; 
Truth  for  ever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  for  ever  on  the 

throne — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and  behind  the  dim 

unknown 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above 

His  own." 

Evasion  of  the  truth  spells  moral  bankruptcy: 
honesty  in  facing  the  truth  breeds  moral  courage. 
Rupert  Brooke,  the  gallant  young  poet  who  died  in 
the  Gallipoli  Campaign,  gave  beauty  a  second  place 
to  truth.  His  one  desire,  we  are  told,  was  to  tell 
the  truth  at  all  costs,  and  let  beauty  take  care  of 
itself.  To  Herbert  Spencer  truth  was  a  religion, 
and  in  praise  of  truth  he  burst  into  at  least  one 
passage  of  poetic  ecstasy :  "  Truth,  like  Venus,  the 
embodiment  of  all  moral  beauty,  is  born  on  the 
clashing  waves  of  public  opinion."  Browning  sacri- 
ficed the  form  of  his  poetry  to  his  passion  for  truth. 
Dean  Farrar  jeopardized  his  popularity  with  the 
Evangelicals  in  the  Church  of  England  by  his  pas- 
sionate proclamation  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  a 
vital  truth.  Loyalty  to  the  truth  has  cost  martyrs 


TRUTH  AND  TRUTHFULNESS         103 

their  lives  in  every  century  of  the  Christian  era.  In 
the  quest  for  truth  mere  reason  is  inadequate.  If 
not  actually  discredited,  pure  reason  "  makes  hum- 
bler claims  on  men's  allegiance"  to-day  than  it  did 
forty  years  ago.  The  spiritual  principle  has  re- 
asserted itself — the  moral  sense  and  the  human  con- 
science have  restored  themselves.  "  For  the  determi- 
nation of  truth,"  says  Mrs.  De  Bunsen,  "  much  more 
is  needed  than  reason  alone — will,  imagination,  emo- 
tion, each  has  its  part  to  play.  Reason  is  not  the  sole 
judge  of  truth.  By  some  minds  deliberately,  by 
many  more  unconsciously,  she  has  been  dethroned." 
"  Truth  begets  truth  as  confidence  wins  con- 
fidence." 

"  Give  truth,  and  your  gift  will  be  paid  in  kind, 
And  honor  will  honor  meet." 

"  What  you  are  speaks  so  loud  I  cannot  hear  what 
you  say,"  says  Emerson.  What  we  are  speaks  so 
loudly,  that  what  we  say  rarely  matters. 


XV 

OPEN-MINDEDNESS 

OPEN-MINDEDNESS  is  the  exact  antithesis 
of  dogmatism.  There  are  some  issues  in  life 
upon  which  boys  and  men  alike  must  take 
their  stand,  and  be  adamant  if  they  are  to  be  worthy 
citizens.  Truth,  charity,  temperance  —  these  are 
fundamentals  of  character  upon  which  no  one  can 
boast  that  he  is  "  a  Gallic,  caring  for  none  of  these 
things."  But  there  are  other  matters  upon  which 
open-mindedness — an  attitude  of  suspended  judg- 
ment— is  both  wise  and  desirable.  The  raw  amateur 
risks  a  fall  if  he  dogmatizes  where  only  specialists 
have  the  right  to  express  an  opinion. 

If  I  take  Spiritualism  as  an  example  of  the  type 
of  subject  upon  which  open-mindedness  is  a  sensible 
attitude  for  a  young  man,  it  is  not  because  I  have 
the  faintest  sympathy  with  spiritualism.  Belief  in 
the  continuance  of  personality  after  death — without 
which  life  would  be  a  horror — rests  on  deep  in- 
tuition, religious  faith,  and  some  scientific  evidence. 
Spiritualists  are  groping  for  the  means  to  hold 
communication  with  those  who  have  passed  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow.  Some  of  them  are  work- 
ing on  what  they  believe  to  be  strictly  scientific  lines, 
and  applying  to  spiritualistic  phenomena  the  tests 
they  apply  to  scientific  experiments  in  other  fields 

104 


OPEN-MINDEDNESS  105 

than  the  psychic.  It  appears  to  me  that  the  attitude  of 
the  agnostic — of  "  I  do  not  know,"  which  is  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  word — is  wise.  Reservation  of  judg- 
ment is  commendable  open-mindedness  while  such 
questions  are  being  probed  by  earnest  and  devout 
savants.  Attaching  any  sort  of  label  to  a  thing  does 
not  dispose  of  it.  Theologians  may  derive  happiness 
from  tacking  the  name  of  an  old  heresy  to  a  new 
thought;  but  no  heresy  persists  unless  it  enshrines 
some  element  of  truth.  Developments  should  be 
awaited  open-mindedly,  and  evidence  should  be 
weighed  with  judicial  patience.  It  may  even  be  that 
God  is  allowing  men  to  penetrate  into  the  secrets  of 
the  Unseen,  and  it  may  possibly  be  that,  as  Francis 
Thompson  says — 

"The  drift  of  pinions,  would  we  hearken, 
Beats  at  our  own  clay-shuttered  doors." 

Let  it  be  clearly  understood,  however,  that  open- 
mindedness  is  not  credulity — that  it  does  not  imply 
readiness  to  accept  convictions  without  testing  the 
validity  of  the  evidence  on  which  they  must  rest. 
Credulity  is  becoming  one  of  the  dangers  of  our  age. 
The  impossible  has  been  achieved  so  often,  that  we 
have  passed  through  an  age  of  scepticism  into  what 
may  become  something  even  worse — an  age  of  blind 
credulity.  We  must  guard  against  letting  convictions 
rest  on  mere  conjectures,  and  against  snapping  con- 
clusions from  the  air.  Every  brilliant  guess  at  truth 
is  not  to  be  hailed  as  a  revelation.  The  Athenians, 
who  were  ever  in  quest  of  some  new  thing,  missed  the 
durable  satisfaction  of  fidelity  to  any  established 
truth.  They  plunged  through  fogs  of  doubt  into  bogs 


106  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

of  despair.  It  is  open-minded  to  cling  to  old  faiths 
till  new  truths  have  made  them  untenable. 

Even  in  keeping  an  open  mind  on  such  an  issue  as 
spiritualism,  it  is  quite  legitimate  to  remember  the 
chicanery  which  has  discredited  almost  all  spiritualis- 
tic mediums.  "  The  whole  subject,"  it  has  been  well 
said,  "  is  entangled  with  trickery  and  charlatanism, 
and  there  is  something  very  suspicious  about  the  sick- 
ening puerility  of  the  unutterable  tosh  in  many  of  the 
alleged  messages."  Browning  had  some  equally 
scathing  things  to  say  of  spiritualists  in  "  Mr.  Sludge 
the  Medium."  Again,  however,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  God,  in  His  infinite  wisdom,  has,  in  the 
processes  of  His  self-revelation  to  the  souls  of  men, 
used  some  very  earthen  vessels  as  culverts  of  His 
grace.  The  cardinals  who  fixed  the  canon  and 
framed  the  creeds  were  not  all  immaculate  charac- 
ters ;  and  the  history  of  religious  revivals  reveals  that 
evangelists  who  have  had  many  ignoble  traits  them- 
selves have  been  the  means  of  changing  ugly  lives  into 
gracious  characters.  Open-mindedness  impels  a  man 
to  balance  pros  and  cons  in  this  fashion  and  to  reach 
his  final  conclusions  unbiased  by  a  priori  prejudices. 

The  labeling  method  of  dealing  with  a  new  thing 
settles  nothing.  Wherever  any  new  subject  comes 
under  discussion  in  a  company  of  men,  some  one,  who 
perhaps  "  recommends  as  wildly  as  he  spells,"  oracu- 
larly remarks:  "That  is  just  Socialism,"  or  "That 
is  nothing  but  sheer  Bolshevism."  He  may  have 
strayed  into  the  truth;  but  the  truth  of  a  label  does 
not  guarantee  the  fallacy  of  the  thing  labeled.  Dur- 
ing the  war,  when  America  to  a  moderate  extent  and 
Great  Britain  to  the  fullest  degree  took  over  railways 


OPEN-MINDEDNESS  107 

and  mines,  commandeered  factories,  controlled  ex- 
ports and  imports,  regulated  what  we  should  eat  and 
how  much  of  it,  and  generally  supplied  (or  supervised 
the  supply  of)  almost  all  necessaries,  we  lived  under 
a  socialistic  regime.  But  it  worked — in  the  circum- 
stances of  war;  and  the  men  who  believe  it  would 
work  in  peace  times  also,  pin  their  faith  to  a  theory 
which  does  not  perish  when  it  has  been  duly  labeled 
and  contemptuously  pooh-poohed. 

In  the  region  of  organized  religion  there  is  a  wide 
sphere  for  open-mindedness.  Happily,  sectarian  divi- 
sions are  not  so  acute  now  as  they  were  twenty  years 
ago.  Denominational  barriers  are  being  lowered; 
and  it  is  no  longer  the  mark  of  a  good  denomination- 
alist  to  despise  all  other  denominations.  The  Con- 
gregational chairman  who  said,  "  We  have  had  a  bad 
year  in  the  Church ;  but  thank  God  the  Baptists  have 
had  a  worse,"  belongs  to  an  age  that  has  passed.  A 
new  Catholicity,  stamped  with  the  imprimatur  of 
open-mindedness,  is  gaining  ground.  We  are  coming 
to  see  that  each  branch  of  the  Christian  Church  meets 
the  spiritual  needs  of  its  own  particular  adherents, 
and  that  the  sum  of  all  the  Churches  is  the  Church 
Catholic. 

Hostility  to  things  new  is  a  sign  of  dogmatic  tem- 
per. Christianity  suffered  grievously  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  by  the  antagonism  of  its  defenders  to 
the  discoveries  of  science.  Though  God  has  always, 
as  John  Robinson  said  to  the  departing  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  new  light  to  throw  upon  His  Word,  the 
Church  has,  unfortunately,  all  through  the  ages,  been 
inhospitable  to  new  knowledge.  Galileo,  persecuted 
for  declaring  that  the  earth  moves,  had  his  nine- 


108  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

teenth-century  parallel  in  the  fierce  assaults  made 
upon  Charles  Darwin  for  proclaiming  the  results  of 
his  researches  into  the  origin  of  species.  The  world 
is  God's  epistle  to  man,  said  an  ancient  sage,  and 
through  scientific  discovery  God  continues  His  reve- 
lation of  His  processes.  Revelation  is  not  confined 
within  the  pages  of  a  book,  and  the  footprints  of  the 
Creator  are  revealed  by  geology  as  surely  as  by  Gene- 
sis. A  closed  mind,  bolted  and  barred  against  new 
truth,  is  a  mind  enslaved  by  intellectual  cowardice. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  said  that  the  day  may  come 
when  we  shall  think  it  just  as  irrational  to  administer 
drugs  without  prayer  as  we  now  think  it  foolish  to 
use  prayer  without  drugs  in  illness.  Such  a  dictum 
suggests  the  wisdom  of  keeping  an  open  mind  on  this 
point.  It  may  be  that  Christianity  has  lost,  in  the 
intervening  centuries,  some  element  of  the  faith  that 
"  made  men  whole  "  in  apostolic  times,  and  that  a 
pathway  to  its  recovery  is  being  found.  The  whole 
question  of  the  power  of  mind  over  matter  has  still  to 
be  explored,  and  Christianity  has  nothing  to  fear 
from  the  investigation. 

In  the  early  days  of  wireless  telegraphy  a  young 
man  nearing  New  York  in  an  Atlantic  liner  found 
himself  short  of  money.  The  purser  could  not,  by 
his  regulations,  cash  a  check  sufficient  for  his  needs ; 
but  when  the  purser  heard  that  the  traveler's  mother 
was  on  a  sister  ship,  with  which  he  would  be  within 
wireless  radius  that  night,  the  problem  was  solved. 
By  a  marconigram  the  mother  was  asked  to  deposit 
five  hundred  dollars  with  the  purser  of  her  ship,  and 
next  morning  the  young  American  received  that  sum 
from  his  own  purser.  Now  if  any  one  had  told  our 


OPEN-MINDEDNESS  109 

grandfathers  that  such  a  miracle  (as  it  would  have 
seemed  to  them)  would  be  an  ordinary  sort  of  event 
in  the  twentieth  century,  they  would  have  derided  the 
idea.  The  story  is  a  parable  for  this  generation. 

Vested  prejudices,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  said,  are 
more  to  be  feared  than  vested  interests.  We  all  in- 
herit, or  early  in  life  absorb,  some  prejudices  that 
tend  to  cabin,  crib,  and  confine  our  minds.  Open- 
mindedness  is  consequently  a  characteristic  not  ac- 
quired without  prayer  and  fasting.  Party,  sectarian, 
and  class  prejudices  crop  up  unconsciously  and  stran- 
gle fair  judgment  unless  fought  down.  Dr.  Richard 
Glover  used  to  say,  in  expressing  an  opinion,  that 
while  convinced  for  the  moment  that  his  view  was 
sound,  he  reserved  the  right  to  differ  from  himself  if 
later  and  fuller  light  justified  that  course.  It  is  a 
habit  of  mind  to  be  commended. 

Lest  I  may  be  suspected  in  pleading  for  open- 
mindedness  to  be  favoring  an  indeterminate  undeci- 
siveness  of  mind,  I  would  urge  that  a  young  man 
should  take  a  definite  side  on  the  great  issues  of  poli- 
tics and  religion.  This  should  be  done  not  precipi- 
tately, but  after  earnest  thought.  What  was  known 
as  a  mugwump — i.  e.,  a  man  who  sits  on  the  fence — 
is  a  pitiable  creature.  He  who  hesitates  to  come  to 
conclusions  because  he  sees  both  sides  of  a  case  so 
strongly,  belongs  to  the  class  of  men  who,  having  the 
choice  of  two  evils,  chooses  both. 


XVI 
READING  AND  STUDY 

FRIENDSHIP  with  books  offers  the  most  abid- 
ing companionship  in  life.  Friends  may  fail 
us,  or  depart,  leaving  the  heart  solitary,  but 
a  few  bookshelves  lined  with  good  books  are  a  per- 
manent source  of  fellowship  and  delight.  A  distinc- 
tion must  be  drawn  between  reading  and  study. 
Reading  is  a  recreation;  study  a  serious  enterprise. 
The  book-lover  turns  to  his  books  when  the  day's 
duty  has  been  done;  the  student  uses  his  books  as  a 
mechanic  uses  his  tools — in  pursuit  of  a  definite  end. 
A  political  student  reads  history  because,  as  Lord 
Morley  puts  it,  a  knowledge  of  the  past  enables  him 
to  see  his  way  through  what  is  happening  now.  Few 
men  are  called  to  be  students,  but  it  should  be  every 
intelligent  young  man's  ambition  to  be  "  well  read." 
At  least  he  should  know  world-history  in  outline,  the 
story  of  his  own  country,  and  the  classics  of  his  own 
language.  He  should  have  his  own  collection  of 
books,  however  small,  and  they  should  have  been  col- 
lected by  himself.  No  volumes  have  such  personal 
value  as  the  books,  new  or  second-hand,  that  have 
been  bought  at  perhaps  a  little  self-sacrifice. 

Some  young  men  have  the  natural  instinct  for  read- 
ing, inheriting  the  taste,  it  may  be,  or  acquiring  it  by 
living  in  a  bookish  atmosphere.  With  others  the  love 
of  books  is  acquired  by  diligence  and  persistence. 

IIQ 


BEADING  AND  STUDY  111 

And  there  are  others  who  would  prefer  sawing  wood 
to  reading.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  told  a  Royal  Com- 
mission on  Copyright  that  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hun- 
dred average  Englishmen,  if  given  the  option  of  read- 
ing a  page  of  his  writings  or  taking  a  daily  dose  of 
castor-oil,  would  say,  "  Pass  me  the  castor-oil."  The 
test  is  hardly  a  fair  one,  as  Mr.  Spencer's  books  are 
abstruse  philosophical  treatises  written  in  a  singularly 
unattractive  and  technical  style,  and  a  daily  dose  of 
Herbert  Spencer  would  probably  make  most  average 
men  hate  books  altogether. 

Reading  for  pleasure  should  also  be  profitable  for 
the  mind.  To  read  shoddy  books  is  to  waste  time. 
But  it  must  be  recognized  that  to  draw  a  distinction 
between  a  good  book  and  a  bad  one  implies  a  standard 
of  taste  that  not  every  young  man  possesses.  Liter- 
ary taste  is  a  gift  of  the  gods,  like  a  true  sense  of  color 
and  an  eye  for  line.  Providing  the  books  are  not  evil 
and  pernicious,  a  boy  should,  at  the  outset,  be  left  to 
read  whatever  suits  his  taste.  Then,  as  his  love  of 
reading  grows,  his  taste  may  be  molded  by  advice. 
Prohibitions  may  destroy  his  inclination  to  read,  but 
by  gently  exerted  influence  he  may  be  weaned  away 
from  rubbish  and  lured  into  the  paths  of  good  litera- 
ture. But  as  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  says,  if  a  reader 
really  likes  the  works  of  Miss  Betty  Balderdash  and 
likes  no  other,  let  him  by  all  means  stick  to  Miss 
Betty. 

Generally,  however,  a  boy  of  any  intelligence  is 
only  too  willing  to  be  guided  along  the  literary  routes 
that  offer  him  the  fairest  landscapes,  introduce  him 
to  the  most  congenial  characters,  and  invite  him  to 
linger  in  the  pleasantest  halting-places.  Friendly 


112  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

counsel  is  not  wasted  in  such  a  case.  Possibly — I  have 
known  cases — it  may  be  necessary  to  caution  a  young 
man  against  becoming  a  mere  bookworm  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  interests  outside  books.  Unless  he  is  pur- 
suing literature  as  a  serious  study,  it  is  not  wise  to 
press  upon  him  any  severe  systematic  course  of  read- 
ing. Warning  against  reading  merely  snippety  or 
sloshy  stuff  may  on  the  other  hand  be  necessary. 
Light  reading,  and  nothing  but  light  reading,  is  like  a 
dinner  of  sweets — an  unsatisfying  meal.  A  young 
man  should  steer  an  even  keel  between  that  Scylla 
and  Charybdis,  and  endeavor  to  make  his  range  of 
reading  as  wide,  varied,  and  catholic  as  possible. 
Happy  is  he  who  can  browse  in  a  good  old  library. 

A  wealth  of  profitable  reading  is  offered  by  history, 
biography,  travel,  poetry,  and  fiction.  Variety  adds 
immeasurably  to  the  joy  of  reading.  Most  book- 
lovers  vary  their  diet  by  passing  from  branch  to 
branch  in  literature,  sometimes  even  having  four  or 
five  books  belonging  to  varying  categories  at  the  same 
time.  How  rapidly  should  one  read?  No  unquali- 
fied answer  is  possible.  An  ordinary  novel  takes  me 
four  or  five  hours,  but  upon  a  good  one  I  should  not 
grudge  twelve  hours.  Reading  without  reflecting  is 
like  eating  without  digesting,  neither  a  pleasure  nor  a 
satisfaction.  And  it  is  the  quality  of  the  book  that 
dictates  the  time  to  be  devoted  to  reflection.  As  it  is 
not  what  we  eat,  but  what  we  digest,  that  nourishes  us 
physically,  so  it  is  not  what  we  read,  but  what  we  ab- 
sorb, that  stores  the  mind  and  develops  the  imagina- 
tion. 

The  question  of  the  best  books  crops  up  as  inev- 
itably as  King  Charles's  head  in  Mr.  Dick's  writings. 


BEADING  AND  STUDY  113 

At  one  time  or  another  every  book-lover,  I  imagine, 
compiles  a  list  of  what  he  regards  as  the  best  books. 
And  the  lists  are  as  various  as  the  idiosyncrasies  of 
their  compilers. 

Between  stern  study  and  merely  general  reading  on 
lines  I  have  sketched,  a  wide  gulf  yawns.  The  trend 
of  the  age  is  against  classics,  and  for  the  moment  the 
commercial  view  of  education  is  dominant.  But  the 
battle  of  the  humanities  will  be  refought,  and  the 
place  of  Greek  and  Latin  in  an  all-round  education  is 
not  permanently  lost.  As  life  wears  on,  men  of 
"  little  Latin  and  less  Greek  "  deplore  their  own  de- 
ficiencies, and  their  sense  of  classical  lost-ness  will  be 
pressed  upon  their  sons.  The  value  of  modern  lan- 
guages grows  as  the  earth  shrinks  through  new  me- 
chanical means  of  communication.  French,  Spanish, 
and  German — in  spite  of  war  hates,  I  include  Ger- 
man— have  immense  commercial  uses. 

Whatever  serious  study  a  young  man  decides  to 
pursue,  he  should  seek  competent  initial  guidance, 
even  if  he  does  not  have  continuous  tuition.  Modern 
scholastic  methods  have  simplified  such  studies  as 
mathematics,  chemistry,  and  physics,  and  an  out-of- 
date  text-book  may  cause  a  young  student  much  un- 
necessary labor.  Nor  ought  I  to  omit  to  advise  any 
young  man  with  the  necessary  educational  equipment 
to  study  for  matriculation  at  one  of  the  universities. 

Though  a  little  knowledge  of  science  may  be  dan- 
gerous, even  a  passing  acquaintance  is  a  pleasant  pos- 
session. Scientific  text-books  are  almost  invariably 
written  in  a  readable  and  even  entertaining  style ;  and 
a  little  scientific  reading  encourages  exactness  of  defi- 


114  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

nition  and  a  distaste  for  what  has  been  called  "  incur- 
able sloppiness  "  of  thought. 

A  maxim  of  Thomas  a  Kempis  on  reading  should 
be  kept  well  in  mind:  "  If  thou  wouldst  profit  by  thy 
reading,  read  humbly,  simply,  honestly  and  not  desir- 
ous to  win  a  character  for  learning."  And  a  confes- 
sion of  George  John  Romanes  is  also  worth  remem- 
bering: "The  more  I  know  the  less  my  wisdom 
grows."  A  true  bookman  is  ever  a  modest  man. 


XVII 
KEEPING  FIT 

NOWADAYS  a  young  man  hates  to  confess 
that  he  is  not  "  as  fit  as  a  fiddle."  To  be 
unable  to  say,  in  the  soldier's  familiar 
idiom,  that  he  is  in  the  very  pink  of  condition,  carries 
with  it,  he  feels,  a  stigma  of  disgrace.  As  he  grows 
older  he  finds  that  anxiety  to  keep  fit  is  a  carking  care 
with  nearly  every  man  he  meets.  Physical  robust- 
ness may  depend  to  some  extent,  no  doubt,  on  hered- 
ity or  early  environment,  or  on  such  factors  outside  a 
man's  control  as  wise  feeding  in  childhood,  judicious 
nursing  through  infantile  complaints,  and  conditions 
of  early  employment;  but  all  these  initial  handicaps 
may  be  largely  overcome  by  the  systematic  pursuit  of 
health-giving  exercises  and  by  wisdom  in  diet  and 
clothing.  Science  has  shed  much  of  its  early  dog- 
matism, and  biologists  are  not  now  haunted  as  they 
were  thirty  years  ago  by  the  doctrine  of  heredity, 
which  was  pressed  until  it  almost  undermined  moral 
responsibility.  Scientists  at  least  admit  now  that  Na- 
ture casts  a  new  matrix  for  each  child  born  into  the 
world.  Every  baby  is  a  new  creature  and  the  natural 
law  of  variation  cuts  across  any  fixed  theory  of  con- 
tinuity; so  that  each  child  has  possibilities  of  mind 
and  body  outside  the  radius  of  scientific  speculation. 
Early  environment  is  influential ;  but  not  so  influential 
as  to  be  incapable  of  remedy  by  wisely  administered 

"5 


116  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

correctives.  Many  a  child,  delicate  to  fragility,  has 
lived  to  confound  the  forebodings  of  his  family  doc- 
tor by  tough  virility  developed  by  sensible  exercises. 

No  time  can  be  better  spent  by  a  young  man  than  a 
few  minutes  devoted,  first  thing  in  the  morning,  to 
one  or  two  simple  exercises.  One,  that  requires  no 
apparatus,  may  be  recommended  after  a  morning 
bath.  It  is  to  lie  flat  on  the  back,  stretched  to  full 
length  on  the  floor,  with  hands  under  the  head.  One 
leg  should  then  be  lifted  ever  so  slowly,  and  while 
kept  absolutely  rigid,  raised  to  the  perpendicular,  and 
at  right  angles  to  the  body.  Then  the  leg  should  be 
dropped  slowly  to  the  floor.  The  other  leg  should  be 
similarly  exercised,  and  then  both  legs  should  be 
raised  simultaneously  and  dropped  together.  This 
exercise  repeated  three  or  four  times  is  exceedingly 
beneficial  to  the  leg  and  abdominal  muscles,  and  is 
conducive  to  digestion.  Another  exercise  which  ren- 
ders similar  service  to  the  muscles  of  the  arms  and 
chest,  is  to  lie  face  downwards  on  a  rug  and  with  the 
body  rigid.  The  body  should  then  be  raised  by  the 
arms  until  they  are  outstretched  and  the  weight  of  the 
body  is  resting  on  the  palms  of  the  hands  and  the  tips 
of  the  toes.  Then,  just  as  slowly,  the  body  should 
drop  to  the  horizontal  position.  Two  or  three  times 
repeated  makes  this  exercise  almost  sufficient  to  keep 
the  muscles  healthy.  The  efficacy  of  both  these  exer- 
cises depends  on  the  movements  being  carried  out 
with  extreme  slowness.  Hurry  them,  and  they  are 
merely  a  waste  of  time. 

A  morning  dip  in  cold  water  followed  by  brisk  rub- 
bing with  a  rough  towel  is  a  bracing  tonic  and  a  moral 
stimulant.  But  to  make  a  fetish  of  the  cold  bath  is  a 


KEEPING  FIT  117 

blunder.  Cold  baths  are  either  a  positive  joy,  which 
to  miss  is  a  sore  deprivation,  or  a  source  of  discom- 
fort and  even  risk.  Unless  within  five  minutes  the 
whole  body  is  a-tingle  with  warmth  from  the  reaction, 
the  cold  bath  should  be  abandoned.  If  toes  and  fin- 
gers remain  chilly,  it  is  a  mistake  to  persist  in  the 
salutary  habit  of  the  morning  cold  dip.  Care  should 
be  taken — after  all  baths,  hot  or  cold,  or  after  swim- 
ming— to  dry  the  toes  and  between  the  toes  very  care- 
fully. Neglect  of  this  precaution  encourages  rheu- 
matic tendencies.  More  enjoyable  than  even  a  cold 
bath  is  a  morning  plunge  in  the  sea  or  a  swimming- 
bath,  followed  by  a  cold  "  shower."  Swimming  is  an 
excellent  exercise  as  well  as  a  desirable  accomplish- 
ment— which  no  sensible  boy  fails  to  acquire. 

Between  the  age  of  fifteen  and  twenty-five  a  young 
man  needs  some  violent  exercise  every  few  days,  and 
a  little  gentle  exercise  every  day,  or  his  muscles  will 
get  flabby,  and  that  lithe  and  supple  poise  of  body 
which  breathes  sheer  joy  in  life  is  soon  lost.  A  good 
rule  for  a  townsman  is  never  to  ride  when  he  can  walk, 
and  for  a  boy  never  to  walk  if  he  can  run.  Rise  early 
enough  to  spare  time  for  a  brisk  walk  to  school,  col- 
lege, or  business.  Up  to  twenty-five,  a  young  man 
should  engage  in  some  sport  necessitating  hard  run- 
ning. It  is  as  natural  for  a  young  man  to  run  as  for 
a  fox-terrier.  Cinder-path  running  is,  however,  a 
doubtful  form  of  exercise.  Sprinters  rarely  make 
robust  men  in  their  maturity. 

Keeping  fit  depends  largely  on  good  digestion.  Up 
to  twenty,  a  boy  should  have  the  digestion  of  an  os- 
trich and  the  appetite  of  a  commissariat  camel.  But 
even  in  boyhood,  carelessness  as  to  food  may  lay  up 


118  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

the  seeds  of  indigestion,  and  even  dyspepsia.  There 
is  only  one  secret  of  sane  feeding.  Food  should  be 
simple,  and  meals  should  be  taken  at  regular  hours. 
It  is  a  delusion  to  imagine  that  the  omission  of  a  meal 
can  be  repaired  by  heartier  eating  at  the  next  meal. 
It  cannot!  That  way  ill-health  lies.  People  gener- 
ally digest  easiest  what  they  enjoy  most;  but  to  this 
general  rule  there  are  many  glaring  exceptions. 
Twice-cooked  foods  should  be  avoided.  Canned 
food  maj  be  healthy  enough — experience  in  the  army 
during  the  war  showed  that  it  is  wholesome — but 
fresh  meats,  vegetables,  and  fruits  are  better.  Green 
vegetables  should  be  eaten  when  available  in  prefer- 
ence to  starchy  root-crops.  Beans  are  better  than  po- 
tatoes, and  cabbage  is  superior  to  carrots.  Whatever 
is  eaten,  it  should  be  masticated  thoroughly  and  eaten 
slowly.  On  the  whole,  it  is  safer  to  bolt  a  beefsteak 
than  a  rice  pudding  or  any  other  starchy  diet. 

Reading  over  solitary  meals  is  a  thoroughly  per- 
nicious habit — i.  e.,  serious  reading — and  the  habit, 
common  among  young  business  men,  of  playing  an 
exacting  mental  game  like  chess  over  lunch,  is  a 
defiance  of  all  principles  of  dietetics. 

Vegetarianism  and  fruitarianism  have  stout  advo- 
cates, and  were  making  rapid  strides  as  food  reforms 
before  the  war.  Possibly  many  people  eat  too  much 
meat,  especially  red  meat,  but  the  idea  that  flesh  food 
is  conducive  to  rheumatic  and  gouty  disorders  seems 
to  have  been  exploded  by  the  experience  of  the  sol- 
diers. Dr.  Woods  Hutchinson  declares  emphatically, 
in  The  Doctor  in  War,  that  the  men  in  the  war  areas 
had  practically  all  the  meat  they  could  eat,  twice  and 
sometimes  three  times  a  day,  not  merely  for  months, 


KEEPING  FIT  119 

but  for  years :  and  yet  gout,  rheumatism,  and  the  har- 
dening of  the  arteries  known  as  arterio  sclerosis — 
often  attributed  to  a  meaty  diet — were  conspicuous  by 
their  absence.  "  A  more  complete  and  overwhelming 
exposure  of  the  vegetarian  delusion  and  the  uric-acid 
myth  could  hardly,"  he  adds,  "  be  imagined." 

Care  of  the  teeth  is  an  essential  element  in  keeping 
fit.  Our  physical  tissues  are  renewed  every  seven 
years,  the  physiologists  tell  us,  but  the  enamel  on  our 
teeth  is  expected  to  last  a  lifetime.  Decayed  teeth 
are  not  only  a  disfigurement;  they  are  a  source  of 
positive  danger  to  health.  Upon  the  slightest  appear- 
ance of  decay  in  a  tooth,  a  dentist  should  be  con- 
sulted, and  either  the  cavity  should  be  filled  or  the 
offending  tooth  should  be  extracted.  Another  wise 
precaution  is  to  keep  a  vigilant  lookout  for  any  re- 
traction of  the  gums  from  the  teeth.  This  is  the  first 
symptom  of  pyorrhoea,  a  widely  prevalent  disease, 
whose  insidiousness  has  only  comparatively  recently 
been  fully  realized  even  by  bacteriologists.  There  is 
now,  however,  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  suppu- 
rations from  gums  affected  by  pyorrhoea  are  the  root- 
causes  of  malnutrition,  acute  indigestion,  and  per- 
nicious anaemia.  Deposits  of  tartar  along  the  gum 
margins  are  contributing  causes  to  pyorrhoea,  and 
should  be  promptly  removed.  Some  one  has  said  that 
teeth  should  be  brushed  in  the  morning  as  a  duty  to 
society,  and  at  night  as  a  duty  to  oneself.  A  good 
tooth-brush,  whose  bristles  are  not  too  stiff,  should  be 
used  with  a  brisk  up  and  down  movement.  Tooth- 
soap  is  preferable  to  gritty  powder,  unless  the  teeth 
need  a  thorough  cleansing,  when  a  mixture  of  cuttle- 
fish and  bicarbonate  of  soda  is  sufficiently  drastic  to 


120  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

remove  even  tobacco  staining.  A  cheap  and  effica- 
cious tooth-wash  is  diluted  peroxide  o£  hydrogen. 
This  has  valuable  antiseptic  properties,  and  keeps  the 
mouth  healthy. 

To  keep  perfectly  fit,  a  young  man  should  have  at 
least  eight  hours'  sleep.  The  old  adage  "  early  to  bed 
and  early  to  rise  makes  a  man  healthy,  wealthy, 
worthy,  and  wise"  may  err  on  the  side  of  over- 
emphasis, and  the  notion  than  an  hour  before  mid- 
night is  better  than  two  hours  in  the  morning  has 
gone  overboard  with  much  other  discredited  wisdom- 
lumber.  On  the  other  hand,  a  comparatively  early 
bedtime  is  conducive  to  general  regularity  of  life. 
Moreover  no  one  can  doubt  the  invigorating  quality 
of  early  morning  hours  spent  out-of-doors.  Sleep  in 
darkness  is  healthier  than  sleep  in  the  daytime.  Even 
plants  languish  if  subjected  to  too  n  uch  light.  Dark- 
ness has  a  tonic  quality,  as  one  discovers  on  a  Mid- 
night Sun  cruise  in  Norway.  A  healthy  boy,  or 
youth,  should  fall  asleep  almost  as  soon  as  his  head 
touches  the  pillow.  If  sleep  should  be  reluctant,  a 
glass  of  hot  milk,  or  even  hot  water,  will  often  woo 
"  Nature's  sweet  restorer."  It  is  a  good  habit  for  a 
young  man  to  get  up  in  the  morning  as  soon  as  he 
wakes.  Lying  awake  in  bed  in  the  morning  is  debili- 
tating, not  to  say  demoralizing. 

A  common  cold  ought  not  to  be  treated  lightly. 
Catarrh  is  a  highy  infectious  disease,  and  the  potential 
mother  of  a  thousand  ills.  A  dose  of  ammoniated 
quinine  is  a  safe  and  generally  efficacious  remedy  for 
a  feverish  cold ;  and  a  gargle  of  permanganate  of  pot- 
ash in  weak  solution  will  often  cure  a  sore  throat  in 
the  early  stages.  Prevention  is  better  than  cure:  and 


KEEPING  FIT  121 

to  obviate  colds,  stuffy  rooms  should  be  avoided,  and 
bedrooms  should  be  freely  ventilated.  Draughts 
cause  fewer  colds  than  vitiated  air  does.  Weather- 
tight  boots  ward  off  many  colds,  and  mufflers  round 
the  neck  cause  many.  Overcoat  collars  should  not  be 
turned  up  except  in  a  blizzard,  or  the  neck  and  throat 
are  sensitized.  Coddling  oneself  is  the  surest  way 
not  to  keep  fit — it  breeds  only  valetudinarians,  the 
people  who  enjoy  bad  health. 


XVIII 
RECREATION 

MAN  was  destined  to  work,  but  not  to  work 
all  his  time.  His  task  in  the  world,  it  al- 
most seems,  is  to  conquer  and  harness 
Nature,  and  in  that  conquest  to  win  a  victory  over  his 
own  worst  self.  But  man  was  meant  to  work  to  live, 
not  to  live  to  work ;  and  it  is  an  indictment  of  a  social 
order  when  it  condemns  men  and  women  to  unceasing 
labor.  Pleasure  and  recreation  have  a  rightful  place 
in  every  life,  and  a  life  from  which  they  are  squeezed 
by  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance  becomes  gnarled 
and  desolated.  Literally  it  is  true  that  "  you  can 
work  a  man's  body  till  his  soul  dies."  Charles  Dar- 
win concentrated  himself  upon  scientific  research  till 
he  lost  all  ear  for  music,  and  all  capacity  to  enjoy 
poetry.  Only  by  a  judicious  balance  of  work  and 
recreation  can  we  attain  that  poise  which  is  the  true 
strategy  of  life. 

If  all  work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy,  all 
play  and  no  work  makes  Jack  worse  than  dull — it 
makes  him  a  parasite  and  a  danger  to  society.  Any 
one  who  fancies  that  he  would  be  happier  if  he  had 
nothing  to  do  but  amuse  himself,  is  simply  harboring 
a  delusion.  The  idle  are  not  people  to  be  envied. 
Perpetual  pleasure-seeking  becomes  desperately  mon- 
otonous. A  study  of  faces  leads  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  most  miserably  bored  people  are  those  whose 

122 


BEOREATION  123 

whole  life  is  an  unending  round  of  pleasure.  Pleas- 
ure palls  quicker  than  toil.  Idleness,  however  dis- 
guised, grows  irksome,  and  unearned  leisure  is  worth 
very  little.  Moral  degeneracy  la  often  due  to  a  desire 
to  whet  jaded  appetites  to  which  wholesome  pleasures 
have  ceased  to  minister. 

Recreation,  while  it  is  a  necessity,  must  be  the  re- 
ward of  the  worker.  The  very  word  recreate  empha- 
sizes its  necessity.  Just  as  the  body  calls  for  replen- 
ishment by  food  and  sleep,  the  mind  and  nerves,  after 
prolonged  effort,  need  restoration  by  some  recreative 
relaxation.  It  is  idle  to  dogmatize  as  to  recreation. 
Varying  temperaments  demand  varying  recreations. 
Outdoor  sports  and  hobbies  offer  one  form  of  whole- 
some recreation ;  reading  and  indoor  games  offer  an- 
other form.  The  essential  thing  in  recreation  is  that 
it  ensures  change.  Mr.  Gladstone,  after  the  exhaus- 
tion of  political  warfare,  recreated  himself  by  felling 
trees  or  by  translating  Homer.  Almost  any  recrea- 
tion is  good  and  profitable  if  it  directs  one's  thoughts 
and  energies  into  fresh  channels. 

A  young  man  bent  on  making  the  best  of  himself 
cannot  afford  to  devote  all  his  leisure  to  merely  pleas- 
urable recreation.  To  spend  every  evening  in  games, 
however  innocent  and  recreative,  is  a  species  of  dissi- 
pation and  a  wanton  waste  of  opportunity.  Time 
ought  always  to  be  reserved  for  some  useful  reading, 
if  not  for  serious  study.  There  are  games  that  merely 
squander  energy  of  mind  or  body:  other  games  by 
their  excellence  are  so  absorbing  that  a  young  man 
runs  a  certain  risk  in  cultivating  them.  Billiards,  for 
example,  is  unsurpassed  as  an  indoor  game';  but  a 
young  man  who  determines  to  leave  it  alone  is  prob- 


124  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

ably  wise.  The  billiard  cue  sticks  to  the  han'd  like 
glue,  and  tempts  a  young  man  to  waste  time  and 
money.  Moderation  in  bilKards  is  not  easy.  The 
green  cloth  exercises  a  weird  fascination.  Unfortu- 
nately the  delicacy  of  touch  needed  by  a  good  billiard 
player  can  only  be  acquired  in  early  life. 

Certain  games  of  cards  are,  to  some,  a  rich  source 
of  intellectual  recreation — as  long  as  the  game  is  ab- 
solutely dissociated  from  the  slightest  tinge  of  gam- 
bling. The  case  against  cards  is  the  case  against 
playing  them  in  a  bad  environment  and  against  the 
gambling  too  often,  but  not  necessarily,  associated 
with  them.  As  General  Booth  used  to  ask:  Why 
should  the  "devil  always  have  the  best  games  and  the 
best  tunes?  If,  however,  gambling  really  is  a  sore 
temptation  to  a  young  man,  he  should  utterly  refuse 
to  play  cards  in  any  circumstances.  He  "  can  no 
other." 

Chess,  dominoes,  and  checkers  are  sometimes 
bunched  together  as  if  they  were  in  the  same  cate- 
gory. This  is  a  libel  on  chess — an  inexhaustible  game 
— if  indeed  it  is  not  a  science  in  itself.  As  recreation, 
chess  is  open  to  one  objection  only — it  is  as  exacting 
mentally  as  any  professional  occupation.  A  mere 
smattering  of  the  game  is  not  worth  acquiring — the 
game  needs  to  be  studied  with  the  help  of  a  text-book. 
Not  from  fear  of  a  crushing  defeat,  but  from  a  sensi- 
tive dread  of  wounding  his  opponent's  feelings  by  his 
undisciplined  plunging,  a  tyro  at  chess  should  never 
venture  on  a  game  with  an  expert  player. 

For  sheer  recreative  excellence,  gardening  is  almost 
outside  the  range  of  challenge.  The  idea  that  gar- 
dening, like  golf,  is  a  middle-aged  man's  outlet  for  his 


BECEEATION  125 

none  too  superfluous  physical  energies,  died  a  natural 
death  during  the  war,  when  many  youngish  men  "  did 
their  bit"  with  fork,  spade,  and  hoe.  The  joys  of 
gafdening  are  anticipatory,  immediate  and  retrospec- 
tive. Half  the  pleasure  a  true  gardener  derives  from 
his  flowers  is  realized  long  before  they  open  their 
petals.  A  rosarian  sees  opening  rosebuds  in  his  mind's 
eye  when  he  is  trenching  the  ground — before  even  a 
bush  is  planted.  The  aroma  of  the  newly-turned 
earth  is  as  incense  to  his  nostrils.  Even  a  small  gar- 
den walled  around  offers  scope  for  endless  ingenuity 
and  enterprise.  The  floral  possibilities  of  a  towns- 
man's backyard  are  almost  inexhaustible.  Roses, 
carnations,  and  lilies — three  of  the  most  rewarding 
gems  in  the  whole  world  of  flowers — will  grow  within 
the  dreary  walls  of  a  suburban  garden  patch,  if  only 
the  gardener  will  treat  them  as  Izaak  Walton  says  a 
true  angler  must  treat  his  worms — as  if  he  loved  them. 
Of  the  refining  influence  of  flowers  I  leave  the  poets 
Of  all  ages  to  sing. 

Recreation  and  delight  for  a  young  man  of  a  more 
utilitarian  cast  of  mind,  can  be  found  in  vegetable 
gardening.  In  essence  there  is  not  much  distinction 
in  satisfaction  between  cultivating  hybrid  tea-roses 
and  potatoes,  or  perpetual  carnations  and  cauli- 
flowers, or  auratum  lilies  and  tomatoes.  I  have 
turned  from  my  own  flower-beds  to  my  vegetable 
patch  without  any  sense  of  forsaking  the  poetical  for 
the  prosaic.  The  skill,  assiduity,  and  thought  re- 
quired are  identical.  And  no  chasm  yawns,  to  the 
eye  of  a  horticulturist,  between  the  loveliness  of  shape, 
scent,  and  color  of,  say,  a  perfectly  grown  rose  and 
the  beauty  of  shape,  color,  and  taste  of,  say,  a  cor- 


126  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

rectly  cultivated  Sunrise  tomato.  Mr.  W.  S.  Gilbert 
satirized  the  aesthete  for  his — 

"attachment  d  la  Plato 
For  a  bashful  young  potato, 
Or  a  not  too  French  French  bean." 

But  the  passion  of  a  really  enthusiastic  gardener  for 
the  products,  floral  and  edible,  of  his  efforts  is  almost 
too  sacrosanct  for  even  a  Bab  Ballad. 

With  the  spread  of  garden  suburbs,  speedier  means 
of  transport,  and  the  gradual  reduction  of  working 
hours,  one  may  hope  for  a  swift  revival,  in  the  com- 
ing years,  of  the  joys  of  rural  life.  Happy  is  the 
young  man  who  can  escape  the  "  twice-breathed  air  " 
of  a  crowded  city  to  spend  his  evenings  in  a  garden  or 
on  an  allotment.  To  such  an  one  I  commend  small 
fruit-culture  as  a  recreation  that  is  at  once  health- 
restoring  and  remunerative.  The  work  is  light  and 
pleasant,  and  comes  as  near  to  fun  as  any  work  can 
come.  Begin  with  a  few  raspberry  and  gooseberry 
bushes,  then  add  red,  black,  and  white  currants.  A 
strawberry  bed  may  follow ;  but  strawberries,  I  find, 
involve  more  care  and  space  than  the  results  justify. 
Somehow  all  fruit-culture  has  a  measure  of  fascina- 
tion which  makes  it  recreative.  The  distinction  I 
draw  is,  that  work  is  recreation  when  it  is  a  change 
from  one's  daily  occupation,  and  when  it  is  a  pleasure. 


XIX 
SPORTS  AND  HOBBIES 

"  iy  /C  OST  vice,"  Dr.  W.  J.  Dawson  once  said, 
\/ 1  "  is  due  to  suppressed  perspiration  " — 

JL-  T  JL  putting  into  arresting  words  the  truth 
that  physical  and  moral  health  are  in  a  large  measure 
interdependent.  The  aim  of  youth  should  be  to  pos- 
sess a  sane  mind  in  a  sound  body ;  and  because  vigor- 
ous sports  are  conducive  to  bodily  health,  they  are 
contributory  to  healthy  morals.  As  a  boy,  Theodore 
Roosevelt  was  asthmatical,  frail,  and  timid,  too  deli- 
cate even  to  go  to  school.  He  determined  to  build  up 
his  constitution,  and  he  did  it  by  boxing  and  outdoor 
life,  till  he  became  almost  incapable  of  physical  fa- 
tigue. He  worked,  says  his  biographer,  Mr.  Her- 
mann Hegedorn,  to  build  up  his  body,  not  for  the  sake 
of  mere  bodily  strength ;  he  worked  to  build  up  his 
mind,  not  for  the  sake  of  mere  mental  agility;  but 
both  together  as  muscle  and  sinew  for  that  spiritual 
power  which  constitutes  the  backbone  of  great  men. 

Boxing,  baseball,  cricket,  and  football  are  the  most 
health-giving  sports  for  a  boy  and  a  young  man.  As 
a  sport,  boxing  has  been  degraded  by  professionalism 
and  betting,  but  as  a  pastime  and  as  an  exercise  for 
the  training  of  muscle,  eye,  and  temper,  boxing  has 
no  superior.  The  idea  that  it  fosters  pugnacity  is,  I 
think,  mistaken.  Given  a  sportsmanlike  spirit,  no 
personal  antagonism  is  created;  and  every  boxer 

127 


'128  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

knows  that  loss  of  temper  exposes  him  to  punishment 
from  an  opponent  who  keeps  his  head  cool  and  his 
temper  under  control.  The  qualities  that  make  a 
good  amateur  boxer  are  just  the  qualities  that  stand  a 
man  in  good  stead  through  life. 

Baseball,  football,  and  cricket  have  a  high  moral 
value,  because  they  are  team  games  from  which  a 
young  player  learns  to  subordinate  his  individual  in- 
clinations to  the  welfare  of  the  nine,  eleven,  or  fifteen, 
in  which  he  is  playing.  This  cultivates  unselfishness, 
and  the  sense  of  interdependence  of  man  on  man :  and 
it  engenders  the  cooperative  instinct  and  community 
pride — two  virtues  of  incalculable  value,  to  village, 
city,  state,  and  race.  The  exception  taken  to  the 
roughness  and  dangers  of  football — either  Rugby  or 
Association — is  exaggerated.  The  number  of  serious 
accidents  on  football-fields  does  not  compare  with  the 
mishaps  of  cycling.  If  comparative  figures  were 
available,  it  would  probably  be  found  that  orange-peel 
and  banana-skins  thrown  on  pavements  cause  more 
fractured  limbs  and  contused  skulls  than  football. 

Cycling  lost  some  of  its  attraction  when  the  motor- 
car came  and  drove  the  cyclist  off  the  roads.  The 
bicycle  is  now  a  means  of  easy  communication  rather 
than  a  source  of  pleasure.  Cycling  as  a  pastime  is 
being  rapidly  revived  by  the  motorcycle,  which  is  also 
resuscitating  the  cycle  tour  as  a  holiday  recreation. 
Certainly  there  is  no  cheaper  and  pleasanter  way  of 
getting  to  know  the  highways  and  byways  of  the 
country  than  by  cycle.  Against  the  motor-bicycle,  it 
has  to  be  said  that  it  affords  no  exercise.  Still  it  is 
extremely  doubtful  whether  the  bicycle  was  ever 
really  as  beneficial  for  exercise  as  its  votaries  im- 


SPOETS  AND  HOBBIES  129 

agined.  It  was  always  a  bad  second  to  walking.  The 
oldest  and  most  primitive  means  of  locomotion  is  still 
the  healthiest  and,  I  think,  the  jolliest.  Given  good 
weather,  dry  roads  free  from  dust,  a  comfortable  pair 
of  stout  boots,  and  a  congenial  companion,  a  walking 
holiday  is  an  undiluted  joy.  In  my  pedestrian  days, 
I  found  that  wearing  two  pairs  of  socks,  a  thick  and 
a  thin  pair,  almost  doubles  one's  walking  capacity  by 
obviating  chafed  heels. 

Golf  is  hardly  a  young  man's  game — though  young 
men  with  ample  leisure  pursue  it  with  passionate  zest. 
I  know  only  one  argument  against  golf,  and  that  is  its 
fatal  fascination.  Every  one  knows  the  old  story  of 
the  Scottish  minister  who  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
he  could  not  find  time  for  both  golf  and  the  ministry, 
and  said  he  had  serious  thoughts  of  giving  up  one  of 
them.  "  What,  give  up  golf  ? "  asked  a  friend. 
"  Nay,"  replied  the  golf-infatuated  parson,  "  it's  the 
ministry  I  should  give  up."  I  found  golf  a  source  of 
both  joy  and  health ;  but  its  cost,  and  the  inroads  it 
was  making  on  my  time — and  perhaps  my  incapacity 
to  gain  a  single-figure  handicap — led  me  to  relinquish 
what  I  think  is  one  of  the  grandest  games  ever  de- 
vised for  man's  recreation.  But  it  certainly  is  not  a 
game  that  a  young  man  with  his  career  in  the  making 
should  take  up,  unless  his  occupation  affords  him  far 
more  than  the  scanty  leisure  that  usually  falls  to  one 
on  the  threshold  of  life.  Learning  to  play  golf  is  not 
a  simple  matter.  The  self-taught  golfer  rarely  at- 
tains any  proficiency,  and,  in  his  golfing  vices,  betrays 
his  want  of  tuition  all  his  days.  A  few  lessons  from 
a  professional  are  advisable:  indeed  they  are  almost 
an  essential. 


130  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

Though  a  delightful  game  and  exhilarating  exer- 
cise, lawn-tennis  is  not  recommended  to  schoolboys, 
because  it  is  not  a  team  game,  and  does  not  encourage 
combination.  But  there  are  few  better  games  for  a 
young  man  following  a  sedentary  occupation.  Played 
vigorously,  it  offers  splendid  exercise. 

Any  opportunity  to  learn  rowing  and  sculling 
should  be  seized,  as  to  be  a  good  waterman  is  very 
desirable.  The  beginner  should  learn  to  row  in  the 
broad-beamed,  inrigged  boats  somewhat  disrespect- 
fully called  "  tubs."  A  little  instruction  is  to  be  wel- 
comed, as  rowing  vices  once  acquired  are  almost  in- 
eradicable, and  a  clumsy  oarsman  cuts  a  ludicrous 
figure.  Not  until  he  has  learned  to  pull  his  blade 
cleanly  through  the  water,  to  clear  his  oars  by  drop- 
ping his  wrists  (feathering,  it  is  called)  at  the  end  of 
the  stroke,  and  to  move  his  body  slowly  forward  into 
position  for  the  next  stroke,  should  the  tyro  pass 
from  the  homely  tub  into  any  outrigged  boat  with  a 
narrower  beam  and  shallower  draught.  Then  the 
real  joys  of  watermanship  begin.  After  learning  to 
row,  the  art  of  sculling  is  soon  added.  Punting  is 
immensely  enjoyable,  but  for  exercise  purposes  is  use- 
less. The  trick  of  propelling  a  flat-bottomed  boat 
with  a  long  pole  has  to  be  acquired,  and  the  beginner 
may  be  advised  to  make  his  first  attempt  "  at  the  dead 
of  night  with  the  lanterns  dimly  burning."  An  audi- 
ence is  embarrassing,  as  in  learning  to  punt  any  one — 
or  all — of  three  mishaps  may  occur.  He  may  lose 
hold  of  the  pole,  or  he  may  part  company  with  the 
punt,  or  he  may  leave  both  the  pole  and  the  punt. 
Happily,  to  overturn  a  punt  is  a  feat  for  a  Goliath. 
Sailing  is  one  long  thrill  of  ecstasy.  The  movement 


SPOETS  AND  HOBBIES  131 

of  gliding  under  canvas,  noiselessly  and  effortlessly, 
over  rippling  water,  with  sails  filled  by  a  gentle  but 
steady  breeze,  has  indescribable  fascinations.  Un- 
fortunately, sails  are  flappy  and  inconstant  things, 
and  winds  are  variable  and  wayward.  So  even  river- 
sailing  is  risky  to  the  inexperienced.  The  vagaries  of 
boats  under  canvas  keep  coroners  busy. 

In  turning  from  sports  to  hobbies,  the  consideration 
of  physical  exercise  yields  to  that  of  mental  recrea- 
tion. The  best  hobby,  I  always  think,  is  microscopy, 
because  any  one  possessing  a  microscope  soon  seeks 
to  mount  his  own  object-slides.  Almost  before  he 
knows  it,  he  is  studying  botany,  geology,  entomology, 
and  biology.  A  world  of  mystery,  wonder — and,  I 
had  almost  said,  miracle — unfolds  itself.  The  quest 
for  objects  for  slides  drives  the  amateur  microscopist 
into  the  country  and  the  woods  and  the  roadsides  for 
specimens,  while  mounting  them  teaches  him  to  be 
scrupulously  clean  and  meticulously  exact.  The  run- 
ning expenses  of  microscopy  are  small,  and  the  hobby 
is  perennially  rewarding  since  it  almost  gives  one  the 
power — 

"  To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand 

And  heaven  in  a  flower. 
To  hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  the  hand, 
Eternity  in  an  hour." 

The  possession  of  even  a  cheap  telescope  is  a  joy 
forever  to  a  boy  or  young  man,  and,  again,  a  scientific 
bent  is  encouraged  by  the  hobby.  When  Tennyson 
saw  the  heavens  through  Sir  Norman  Lockyer's  tele- 
scope, he  said  that  "  a  sight  like  that  makes  one  think 
less  of  our  county  families."  Telescopy  has  a  subtly 
sobering  effect  on  its  devotees.  It  takes  the  conceit 


133  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

out  of  a  man  to  realize  his  infinitesimal  place  in  the 
mighty  universe.  A  hand-telescope,  in  the  absence  of 
a  more  scientific  instrument,  opens  a  wide  door  to 
knowledge.  Only  a  few  years  ago,  a  new  planet  was 
first  discovered  by  an  amateur  astronomer  working 
with  a  hand-telescope — showing  that  in  this  field 
costly  equipment  is  not  an  absolute  necessity. 

A  beginner  taking  up  photography  should  seek  ad- 
vice before  buying  a  camera  or  any  necessary  equip- 
ment. He  should  resist  the  blandishments  of  "  You 
press  the  shutter  and  we  do  the  rest  "  advertisers,  nor 
should  he  yield  to  the  allurements  of  mere  snap-shot- 
ting. A  good  stand-camera  with  a  doublet  (rapid 
rectilinear,  or  symmetrical)  lens  is  the  best  invest- 
ment. A  mechanical  shutter  is  an  expensive  super- 
fluity at  the  outset,  as  a  lens  cap  is  all  that  is  neces- 
sary. Plates  are  cheaper  than  films,  and  are  easier  to 
manipulate  in  the  dark-room  and  printing-frame. 
The  amateur  photographer  who  does  not  develop  his 
own  negatives  misses  half  the  delight  of  the  hobby. 
The  process  is  simple,  involving  only  care  and  cleanli- 
ness. Select  a  recognized  developer  and  stick  to  it. 
Pyro-soda  is  still  the  best.  Much  money  may  be 
wasted  on  trying  various  printing  processes.  Ordi- 
nary printing-out  paper  presents  fewest  difficulties. 
Gaslight  papers  are  simple,  but  unequal.  Every  ama- 
teur should  ultimately  master  platinotype-printing, 
though  I  think  the  carbon  process  is  even  more  allur- 
ing. 

Stamp-collecting  encourages  boys  to  interest  them- 
selves in  geography — the  most  tedious  subject  in  the 
school  curriculum  until  the  new  regional  geography 
transformed  it  into  a  fascinating  human  study.  When 


SPOETS  AND  HOBBIES  13S 

school-days  end,  stamp-collecting  usually  ceases,  be- 
cause it  is  really  a  hobby  that,  taken  seriously,  is  be- 
yond the  purse  of  average  young  men.  Philately  is 
a  cult  for  kings,  or  for  millionaires  whose  tastes  do 
not  lie  in  the  direction  of  pictures,  china,  furniture,  or 
curios. 

A  hobby  that  combines  intellectual  interest  with 
open-air  life  is  the  best  hobby  for  a  young  man.  Col- 
lecting moths  and  butterflies  is  better,  for  that  reason, 
than  making  a  collection  of  stamps.  But  no  hobby  is 
bad  if  it  tends  to  broaden  a  young  man's  horizon, 
quicken  his  observation,  and  enrich  his  mind.  Were 
I  a  boy  again,  living  in  these  ample  times,  I  should 
want  to  have  a  lathe;  and  I  should  want  to  try  my 
'prentice  hand  at  generating  and  harnessing  electricity 
with  a  small  dynamo  and  motor;  nor  should  I  rest 
contented  until  I  had  fixed  up  a  wireless  telegraphy 
receiver,  and  perhaps  a  short-distance  transmitter. 
Even  then  I  should  dream  of  some  day  being  the  pos- 
sessor of  an  X-ray  apparatus  and  perhaps  a  liquid-air 
outfit.  The  young  man  of  to-day  has  an  endless  vista 
of  inexhaustible  hobby-interests  within  his  reach. 
Never  could  it  be  said  so  truly  that  the  portals  of 
knowledge  have  been  flung  wide  open  for  any  way- 
farer to  ramble  through. 


XX 

AMUSEMENTS 

PROBABLY  it  was  contemplating  the  tragedy 
of  misspent  leisure  that  led  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  to  indulge  in  the  hyperbole  that 
"  there  should  be  nothing  so  much  a  man's  business 
as  his  amusements."  Wholesome  amusement,  how- 
ever, is  almost  as  necessary  to  a  young  man  as  whole- 
some food.  The  whole  question  of  amusements 
turns  upon  their  nature  and  degree.  Obviously  any 
pleasure  that  demoralizes  the  individual  is,  in  the  long 
run,  injurious  to  the  community,  just  as  any  pleasure 
which  involves  degradation  of  those  who  provide  it,  is 
inimical  to  public  well-being.  These  two  interlocked 
principles  should  guide  us  in  the  selection  of  our 
amusements.  If  any  entertainment  inflicts  loss  of 
manly  self-esteem,  or  involves  deprivation  of  womanly 
virtue,  the  amusement  they  tender  us  is  offered  at  too 
high  a  cost.  Again,  any  amusement  that  tends  to  dis- 
incline a  man  to  work  is  wasteful  of  energy  that  ought 
to  be  directed  to  fruitful  channels.  Even  innocent 
recreations  may  be  destructive  of  character,  if  they 
are  pursued  so  eagerly  as  to  push  aside  serious  work 
and  thought. 

The  gravamen  of  the  charge  society  has  a  right  to 
bring  against  the  idle  rich,  is  that  lives  of  indolence, 

'34 


AMUSEMENTS  135 

ease,  and  pleasure  must,  in  a  highly  organized  society, 
divert  the  labor  of  others  from  useful  channels.  The 
pleasures  of  the  idle  are  bought  at  the  price  of  the 
toil  and  deprivation  of  workers  whose  labor  produces 
nothing.  The  laboring  poor  always  pay  for  the  lux- 
uries of  the  idle  rich ;  and  though,  as  Mr.  G.  K.  Ches- 
terton says,  the  kindness  of  the  poor  to  the  rich  is  one 
of  the  most  touching  features  in  life,  there  is  a  grow- 
ing impatience  on  the  part  of  the  workers  with  those, 
either  at  the  top  or  bottom  of  the  social  scale,  who 
"  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin." 

Amusement  is  only  legitimate  as  a  relaxation  from 
industry.  A  just  Providence,  says  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
sells  all  good  things  unto  us  at  the  price  of  labor. 
Work  whets  our  appetite  for  amusement  and  is  its^only 
real  justification.  A  daily  round  of  amusement,  a  life 
devoted  to  nothing  but  amusement,  becomes  as  dreary 
as  the  most  mechanical  task  work.  Only  as  work 
and  amusement  are  poised  in  a  sane  counterbalance 
do  we  get  the  true  satisfactions  of  effort  and  play. 
A  young  man  should  seriously  consider  what  share 
of  his  leisure  he  should  devote  to  mere  amusement, 
and  in  this  consideration  he  should  bear  in  mind  the 
.principle  that,  to  be  thoroughly  enjoyed,  amusement 
should  have  been  thoroughly  earned. 

The  Puritan  attitude  of  hostility  to  the  theatre  has, 
it  must  be  recognized,  undergone  modification  in  re- 
cent years.  The  Seventeenth  Century  Puritans  ob- 
jected to  acting  in  any  form.  Here  they  cut  deeply 
into  an  ingrained  human  instinct  and  one  which  can- 
not be  crushed  down  by  argument  or  prohibition. 
Every  child  is  a  play  actor,  and  nearly  all  savages 
have  their  crude  tribal  dramas.  What  gave  force 


136  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

and  vitality  to  the  Puritan  objection  to  the  theatre 
was  the  shameless  indecency  of  the  lesser  Restoration 
dramatists  and  the  notorious  licentiousness  of  the 
actors  and  actresses  of  that  time.  Not  prudery  but 
a  wholesome  sense  of  the  decency  of  things  drove  the 
Puritans  to  a  determination  to  have  none  of  the  evil 
thing. 

This  stern  protest  against  unseemliness  led  to  the 
austere  and  perhaps  lugubrious  view  of  life  with 
which  Puritanism  came  to  be  associated.  Even  in  the 
nineteenth  century  this  Puritanic  tendency  warped 
the  Christian  view  of  the  arts. 

But  long  before  the  age  of  Puritanism  the  Church 
was  the  patron  of  the  stage  as  she  was  of  the  arts. 
The  Catholic  Church  kept  painting  alive  through  the 
dark  Middle  Ages.  The  old  morality  plays  were 
staged  under  Church  auspices,  and  regarded  by  their 
pious  patrons  as  popular  means  of  presenting  the 
Christian  virtues.  In  our  own  time  a  new  alliance 
of  Church  and  stage,  an  honest  attempt  to  encourage 
the  creation  of  a  new  drama,  and  a  new  conception  of 
acting,  has  been  created — though  its  progress  has 
been  tediously  slow.  The  moral  tendency  of  the 
modern  theatre  is  certainly  not  uplifting:  indeed  the 
famous  playwright  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  has  de- 
clared that  English  drama  has  never  been  in  so  de- 
graded a  condition  as  it  is  to-day. 

A  public  that  wants  clean,  healthy  plays  does  exist, 
just  as  there  is  a  public  that  prefers  clean,  healthy 
fiction  to  the  erotic  and  neurotic  novels  that  crowd 
the  bookstores.  A  clean  theatre  might  be  an  inspira- 
tional influence  on  the  life  of  to-day. 

The  birth  of  the  moving-picture  theatre  is  one  of 


AMUSEMENTS  137 

the  mightiest  facts  in  recent  history.  It  is  still  in  its 
infancy,  and  it  has  been  abused  both  by  films  that 
tend  to  degeneracy  and  by  films  that  irritate  by  their 
didactic  propagandism.  The  future  of  the  moving- 
picture  theatre  is  in  the  hands  of  the  public.  Ex- 
hibitors of  films  unite  in  declaring  that  they  have  no 
wish  to  present  films  associated  with  crime  and  im- 
morality, and  are  indeed  anxious  to  raise  the  standard 
of  moving-picture  programs.  The  higher  tastes  of 
their  patrons  have,  however,  to  be  cultivated,  and  the 
responsibility  for  this  culture  rests  with  educationists 
and  even  with  the  Christian  Church. 

Music  is  an  amusement,  but  it  is  much  more  than 
an  amusement.  It  is  an  educational  and  spiritualiz- 
ing art  which,  in  one  form  or  another,  a  young  man 
should  cultivate  in  his  own  highest  interests.  A  wit 
has  said  that  music  is  the  most  expensive  form  of 
noise,  and  another  humorist  has  observed  that  clas- 
sical music  is  that  form  of  music  which  is  so  much 
better  than  it  sounds.  However  economical  of  his 
leisure  a  young  man  may  be,  time  should  be  found  to 
master  the  elements  of  music,  to  learn  to  sing,  or  play 
a  musical  instrument,  and  to  hear  good  music  ren- 
dered. Ears  and  tastes  differ,  and  in  music  one  man's 
joy  is  another's  anathema.  A  devotee  of  Sullivan 
may  squirm  under  Bach,  and  a  votary  of  Beethoven's 
sonatas  may  yawn  even  over  the  honeyed  sweetness 
of  Handel's  Messiah.  Avoid  affectation  and  follow 
your  bent  is  the  best  advice  as  to  music  that  I  can 
offer  a  young  man.  Do  not  praise  Debussy  if  you 
really  prefer  Balfe,  nor  pretend  to  be  ecstatic  over 
Tschaikovsky's  "  1812  "  if  "  There's  a  long  long  trail 
a-winding"  is  more  to  your  fancy.  Be  honest  in 


138  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

your  tastes,  but  cultivate  them.  Your  joy  in  jazz- 
tunes  may  end  in  appreciation  of  the  "  Moonlight 
Sonata." 

The  literature  of  music  is  rich  in  romance  and 
human  interest,  and  I  commend  Grove's  Dictionary 
of  Music  to  a  young  man  with  any  musical  interests. 
Great  musicians  are  curiously  interesting  personali- 
ties. Their  life-stories  abound  in  unexpectedness. 
In  his  way  Beethoven  was  a  sort  of  Dr.  Johnson,  an- 
other rough-hewn  struggler,  brusque,  peevish,  even 
harsh,  but  likeable,  for  all  his  foibles.  In  all  biog- 
raphy there  are  few  episodes  more  melting  than  the 
splendid  courage  with  which  old  Beethoven  faced  the 
tragedy  of  his  deafness ;  and  his  last  moments,  when 
he  whispered  with  grim  humor,  "  Comedia  finita  est " 
(the  comedy  is  played  out),  rang  down  the  curtain  on 
a  human  drama  of  entrancing  interest.  Schubert,  the 
inspired  vagabond  who  wrote  immortal  song-tunes  on 
restaurant  menu-cards  and  other  odd  scraps  of  paper, 
and  did  not  recognize  one  week  the  music  he  had  com- 
posed a  week  before,  is  a  titanic  figure  in  a  real  Bo- 
hemia. Mozart — immortalized  by  Don  Giovanni — 
the  boy  genius  who  died  of  starvation  in  early  man- 
hood just  as  he  had  finished  his  deathless  "  Re- 
quiem " ;  Handel,  pompous  and  egotistical,  staggering 
us  by  his  amazing  fecundity  as  he  captivates  us  by  the 
majesty  of  his  mighty  chorals;  the  gentle,  effeminate 
Schumann,  supreme  in  writing  lieder,  dying  in  a  mad- 
house from  insanity  caused  by  a  false  chord  of  music 
that  wounded  and  obsessed  his  brain;  Mendelssohn, 
rightly  named  Felix,  lovely  in  countenance,  lofty  in 
soul,  smiled  upon  by  the  gods,  and  tripping  happily 
through  life — all  these  and  many  more  fascinatingly 


AMUSEMENTS  139 

varied  characters  flit  across  the  stage  of  musical  his- 
tory and  offer  a  reader  of  musical  biography — 

"A  perpetual  feast  of  nectar'd  sweets 
Where  no  crude  surfeit  reigns." 

Other  arts  offer  fair  fields  of  amusement.  Pic- 
tures, statues,  miniatures,  even  beautiful  furniture, 
minister  to  our  highest  instincts,  and  to  neglect  them 
is  to  rob  life  of  its  embellishing  graces.  Travel  is  it- 
self a  liberal  education  and,  par  excellence,  the  surest 
means  of  acquiring  that  polish  of  mind  and  manners 
distinctive  of  a  man  of  broad  culture.  It  furnishes, 
as  Dr.  Johnson  puts  it,  "  variety  to  the  eye  and  ampli- 
tude to  the  mind." 


XXI 
WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

THE  arts  of  writing  and  speaking  are  an  in- 
valuable accomplishment  for  any  young 
man.  They  are  at  once  sources  of  joy  and 
springs  of  power.  While  it  may  be  quite  true  that  a 
great  writer,  like  a  poet,  is  born  and  not  made,  the 
capacity  to  give  written  expression  in  pleasant  and 
effective  form  to  one's  thoughts  and  ideas  can  be  cul- 
tivated by  any  one  of  moderate  education.  With  a 
little  assiduity  and  some  patience  a  young  man  will 
find  that  writing  grows  easier,  and  that  with  practice 
thoughts  which  seemed  inarticulate  take  shape  on 
paper.  Later  in  life  he  will  discover  a  thousand  uses 
for  the  art  of  writing,  and  he  will  never  lament  as 
misspent  any  hours  he  may  have  devoted  to  its  ac- 
quirement. 

As  a  concise  text-book  to  writing,  I  advise  Nichol's 
English  Composition  (Macmillan),  which  is  lucid 
and  compact,  and  excellently  arranged,  as  a  guide  and 
counsellor.  Then  certain  models  of  composition 
should  be  read.  The  Authorized  Version  of  the  Bible 
has  no  equal.  The  late  W.  T.  Stead  caught  his  flex- 
ible English  style  from  constant  study  of  the  Bible. 
Read  carefully  the  latter  half  of  Isaiah,  the  Psalms, 
the  Book  of  Job,  the  Gospels  of  St.  Mark,  St.  Luke, 
and  St.  John,  and  the  Book  of  the  Revelation;  note 

140 


WKITING  AND  SPEAKING  141 

the  unaffected  simplicity  of  the  Saxon  English  and 
the  unerring  fitness  of  every  word.  Another  great 
model  of  English  pure  and  undefiled  is  John  Bunyan's 
Pilgrim's  Progress.  Bunyan's  English  all  came  from 
the  Authorized  Bible,  but  his  own  genius  gave  it  a 
character  of  his  own.  P"or  chaste  beauty  and  deli- 
cacy of  expression,  go  to  John  Ruskin ;  for  the  study 
of  glow  and  color  in  language,  read  Macaulay's  Es- 
says  and  also  his  History.  Swinburne's  poetry  re- 
veals the  majesty  and  music  of  words,  even  though, 
sometimes,  the  thoughts  they  clothe  seem  scarcely 
worthy  of  their  gorgeous  robes. 

But  the  best  practice  in  writing  is  to  write.  And 
one  of  the  best  methods  of  learning  to  write  is  to 
practice  the  short  essay.  Begin  with  familiar  sub- 
jects. Describe  in  500  words  your  daily  walk  to 
business.  In  the  same  number  of  words  say  which  is 
your  favorite  newspaper,  and  explain  why  it  is  your 
favorite.  Put  on  record  in  a  short  essay  your  recol- 
lections of  a  holiday,  or  describe  a  football  match  you 
have  watched  or  played  in.  Then,  exercising  a  little 
more  ambition,  attempt  a  description  of  your  favorite 
view,  or  describe  what  arrested  your  attention  in  a 
wood  in  spring.  This  is  an  excellent  test  of  observa- 
tion, memory,  and  literary  ability.  You  may  find 
yourself  in  one  of  two  difficulties.  Nature  may  cast 
no  cunning  spell  over  you — for  as  Mrs.  Browning 
says — 

"  Earth's  crammed  with  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God : 
But  only  he  who  sees,  takes  off  his  shoes : 
The  rest  sit  round  it,  and  pluck  blackberries." 

Should  you  belong  to  the  Philistines  who  "  sit  round 


142  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

it  and  pluck  blackberries,"  a  Nature  essay  will  tax 
your  mental  ingenuity,  and  the  result  may  be  a  bald 
and  unconvincing  narrative  without  any  sacred  fire 
in  it.  On  the  other  hand,  you  may  be  deeply  moved 
by  Nature's  mysteries,  and  then  you  may  be  tempted 
into  sheer  grandiloquence  and  verbal  florescence. 
This  is  a  vice  in  writing  that  must  be  avoided.  A 
flamboyant  style  is  a  bad  style.  Aim  at  expressing 
yourself  simply  and  directly,  but  gracefully  and  with- 
out banality.  Of  a  certain  living  bishop  it  is  said  that 
he  never  uses  one  word  if  six  will  do.  Good  writing 
has  freedom  with  restraint,  and  color  without  re- 
splendence. Above  all,  it  is  the  natural  expression 
of  the  writer's  personality,  and  not  merely  the  out- 
growth of  affectation. 

Certain  vices  in  writing  should  be  avoided.  Use 
Saxon  words  when  you  can.  Say  "begin"  rather 
than  "  commence."  Use  a  short  word  when  it  will 
express  your  thought  quite  as  well  as  a  long  one. 
Be  very  careful  with  metaphors  and  similes.  Take 
care  that  they  do  not  get  mixed.  The  best  instance  I 
know  of  a  mixed  metaphor  is  that  of  a  one-time  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Lords,  who  said  that :  "  Now  that 
we  have  cleared  all  the  barbed-wire  fences,  it  is  to  be 
hoped  we  are  in  smooth  water  at  last."  A  horrible 
example  of  mere  verbosity  is  the  essay  of  a  student 
who  wrote  of  a  fading  lily  as  "  a  sweet,  mellifluous 
flower  retreating  into  the  airy  mansions  of  annihila- 
tion." Such  writing  is  merely  vulgar  abuse  of  words. 
Turn  up  Sheridan's  plays  and  read  The  Rivals  just 
to  smile  over — and  be  warned  by — Mrs.  Malaprop's 
mixed  metaphors,  or  "  derangements  of  epitaphs  "  as 
she  called  them. 


WEITING  AND  SPEAKING  143 

Another  useful — and  perhaps  less  exacting — 
method  of  learning  to  write,  is  to  condense  down  a 
political  speech.  Take  one  of  Mr.  Asquith's  orations 
— it  will  probably  contain  about  4,000  words  in  the 
verbatim  report — and  try  to  give  all  its  main  points 
in  1,000  words  or  even  500  words.  This  conden- 
sation, known  as  precis  writing,  is  by  no  means  so 
simple  as  it  looks,  but  it  is  excellent  practice  for  a 
young  writer.  Moreover,  a  good  precis-writer  is  a 
valued  man  in  a  business  house,  when  the  gist  of  a 
memorandum  or  the  outline  of  a  document  has  to  be 
given  in  an  abbreviated  form.  In  a  true  precis,  th« 
digest  follows  almost  slavishly  the  language  of  the 
original — only  the  non-essentials  are  omitted,  and  the 
somewhat  redundant  passages  are  condensed  into  a 
more  compact  form. 

Letter-writing  is  a  fine  art  which  the  telegraph  and 
the  telephone  have  sadly  injured.  But  if  our  private 
correspondence  has  been  robbed  of  its  former  graces, 
our  business  correspondence  has  assumed  vaster  pro- 
portions and  magnified  importance.  However  lim- 
(ited  may  be  a  young  man's  literary  gifts,  he  should  at 
least  be  capable  of  writing  a  simple,  clear,  intelligent 
letter  of  a  personal  or  business  character.  Many  a 
good  business  opening  has  been  lost  to  an  eminently 
suitable  candidate  through  his  inability  to  make  appli- 
cation for  it  by  a  fitting  letter.  Mr.  John  Morley, 
when  editing  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  had  a  leader- 
writer  whose  florid  style  he  had  constantly  to  check 
by  the  instruction  "  No  dithyrambs,  s'il  vous  plait." 
Mr.  Morley's  counsel  stands  good  for  all  business 
letters.  Dithyrambs  are  out  of  place  in  commercial 
correspondence.  Learn  to  write  a  compact  letter, 


144  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

without  any  superfluous  phrases  and  without  any  ugly 
contractions,  stating  what  you  want  to  say,  in  words 
and  phrases  as  clear  as  sunlight.  Conciseness  with- 
out the  omission  of  any  essential  facts  is  the  main 
requisite  in  business  correspondence.  It  need  hardly 
be  added  that  a  young  man  should  take  pains  to  write 
a  legible  hand,  and,  above  everything,  that  he  should 
spell  correctly  and  punctuate  decently.  He  should  be 
careful  to  give  names  and  addresses  accurately.  Fail- 
ure on  this  point  is  interpreted  as  evidence  of  care- 
lessness, and  is  a  sure  barrier  to  progress. 

Possibly  the  art  of  public  speech  has  not  great  com- 
mercial value,  and  a  young  man — who  may  think  he 
is  "  no  orator  as  Brutus  is  " — will  imagine  that  its  cul- 
tivation is  not  worth  while.  I  suggest,  however,  that 
to  make  commercial  value  the  test  of  all  things  is  to 
plunge  into  the  blunder — against  which  I  have  tried 
to  warn  young  readers — of  setting  out  merely  to 
make  a  livelihood  instead  of  a  life.  Moreover,  the 
ability  to  speak  in  public  often  proves  to  have  a  very 
definite  commercial  value.  I  have  a  friend  who, 
when  a  junior  bank-clerk,  made  a  speech  criticizing  a 
paper  read  by  an  eminent  banker  before  the  Institute 
of  Bankers,  and  that  speech  opened  the  portals  for 
him  into  the  higher  ranges  of  banking,  in  which  to- 
dny  he  is  a  distinguished  expert  himself.  By  his 
speech  that  night  he  caught  at  the  flood  the  tide 
which,  Shakespeare  says,  comes  into  the  affairs  of 
men,  and  it  bore  him  on  to  fortune.  It  was  David 
Lloyd  George's  capacity  to  speak  in  public  that  led 
his  uncle  to  deny  himself  so  that  his  orphan  nephew 
might  become  a  lawyer — and,  through  the  law,  be- 
come a  Member  of  Parliament  and  Prime  Minister  of 


WBITING  AND  SPEAKING  145 

England.  Dismissing  altogether  the  utilitarian  as- 
pect of  public  speaking,  I  recommend  young  men  to 
learn  to  speak  for  the  pleasure  and  satisfaction  that 
the  accomplishment  lends  to  life.  Occasions  arise 
when  some  little  duty  of  public  speech  is  thrust  upon 
a  man,  and  to  be  unable  to  propose  a  toast  at  a  family 
wedding,  or  to  move  a  vote  of  thanks  at  a  meeting, 
with  creditable  grace  and  without  embarrassment,  is 
a  manifest  disability  and  deprivation. 

To  a  young  man  desirous  of  acquiring  the  art  of 
public  speech,  my  advice  is  to  join  a  debating  society, 
and  attend  the  meetings  whenever  you  can.  Do  not 
be  too  eager  to  speak  at  first.  Listen  and  observe 
until  some  subject  is  under  discussion  upon  which 
you  have  some  ideas  of  your  own.  Then  speak — 
speak  briefly,  make  just  the  point,  or  points,  you  want 
to  make,  and  sit  down  as  soon  as  you  have  done  so. 
Do  not  go  on  speaking  when  you  have  nothing  further 
to  say.  It  is  easier  to  begin  a  speech  than  to  end  one. 
As  you  acquire  practice  you  will  want  to  do  some- 
thing more  ambitious.  Then  you  should  prepare  a 
few  notes — to  give  you  the  sequence  into  which  you 
want  to  cast  your  points.  Do  not  write  your  speech 
and  read  it.  But  it  may  be  wise  to  write  out  your 
first  sentence  and  your  last  sentence,  so  that  you  know 
how  you  will  begin  and  how  you  will  end  your  speech. 
Brevity  is  the  soul  of  wit;  but  brevity  to  the  point  of 
baldness  suggests  poverty  of  thought.  Speak  clearly, 
not  too  quickly,  and  do  not  "  clip  "  the  ends  of  your 
phrases.  You  may  be  nervous:  but  do  not  fear  that. 
No  one  ever  made  a  decent  speech  without  being 
nervous  before  he  began  it,  and  many  great  speakers 
are  nervous  all  the  while  they  are  speaking.  Stand 


146  THE  STRATEGY  OP  LIFE 

straight  and  still — apart  from  any  natural  ges- 
ture— and  avoid  listlessness  or  lethargy  while  speak- 
ing. 

To  be  effective  a  speech  must  be  delivered  with 
vivacity.  Mere  fluency  of  speech  is  very  perilous, 
because  it  tempts  a  man  to  unconsidered  utterances. 
"  Think  before  you  speak,  young  man,"  said  a  public 
man  of  experience  to  his  son,  "  and  it  will  do  you  no 
harm  if  you  go  on  thinking  while  you  are  speaking." 
Mere  eloquence  wedded  to  poverty  of  thought  is  the 
worst  vice  of  a  public  speaker. 

Clear  enunciation  and  correct  pronunciation  are 
among  the  first  requisites  in  a  public  speaker.  The 
National  Assemblies  of  all  lands  expect  nervousness 
in  a  member  who  is  making  his  maiden  speech — it 
takes  him  to  its  heart  if  he  only  narrowly  escapes 
breaking  down,  possibly  because  it  detects  a  compli- 
ment to  its  awe-inspiring  augustness  as  an  assembly — 
but  it  is  contemptuous  of  a  speaker  who  blunders  in 
pronunciation.  A  false  quantity  or  a  misplaced  ac- 
cent is  an  unforgivable  offence  against  oratorical  good 
manners.  A  young  speaker  should  eschew  words  of 
whose  pronunciation  he  is  not  perfectly  sure.  It  is  a 
good  plan  to  note  any  strange  word  read  in  print  or 
heard  in  conversation,  and  turn  up  a  dictionary  to 
make  certain  how  it  is  pronounced,  and  what  are  its 
exact  connotations.  But  use  a  reliable  dictionary. 
In  its  earliest  edition  a  somewhat  popular  English 
dictionary  made  hyperbole  rhyme  with  pole — a  ghastly 
blunder  that  would  have  ruined  a  speaker  who  trusted 
to  its  accuracy.  Some  years  ago  I  heard  a  popular 
preacher  use  the  word  Zeus  half  a  dozen  times,  pro- 
nouncing it  eacK  time  as  a  word  of  two  syllables. 


WEITINQ  AND  SPEAKING  147 

Attention  to  the  correct  sound  and  exact  meaning  of 
words  also  helps  a  young  speaker  in  ordinary  conver- 
sation, where  betises  jar  on  hearers  and  reflect  on  the 
utterer. 


XXII 
CHEERFULNESS 

WE  all  owe  to  mankind  the  duty  of  being  as 
bright  and  happy  as  our  temperament  and 
circumstances  will  allow.  Cheerfulness 
is  a  matter  of  temperament  in  the  first  instance;  but 
cheerfulness  is  a  quality  of  character  that  may  be 
cultivated.  No  moral  quality  is  more  appreciated  by 
our  fellow-men.  Mr.  Philip  Gibbs,  the  famous  war 
correspondent,  insisted  that  only  the  cheerfulness  of 
the  British  soldier  made  the  long,  dreary  waiting  in 
the  trenches  of  Flanders  endurable.  This  cheerful- 
ness was  certainly  a  miracle  of  habit  overcoming 
temperament.  The  British  race  is  not,  by  nature, 
buoyant  and  ardent.  Climate,  latitude,  and  racial 
characteristics  all  tend  in  the  opposite  direction. 
Englishmen  are  said  to  take  even  their  pleasures 
sadly.  Only  by  supreme  effort  of  will,  often  quite 
unconsciously  exerted,  were  soldiers  able  to  face 
the  horrible  discomforts  and  the  appalling  risks  of 
trench  warfare — "  the  sodden  years  of  heaped-up 
weariness  " — without  falling  into  a  melancholy  which 
would  have  destroyed  their  military  morale.  Cheer- 
fulness is  a  habit  we  can  all  acquire.  It  is  an 
anodyne  against  life's  hardest  buffets. 

A  visitor  to  a  British  prison  picked  up  a  Bible  in 
one  of  the  cells  for  long-term-service  convicts.    He 

148 


CHEERFULNESS  149 

turned  over  its  leaves,  and  his  eye  caught  a  penciled 
note  on  the  pages,  "  Cheer  up,  Jeremiah,"  that  some 
waggish  prisoner  had  scribbled  on  the  last  page  of  the 
Lamentations.  It  was  just  another  manifestation  of 
the  spirit  of  the  soldiers  in  the  trenches — an  uncon- 
querable resolution  not  to  be  downhearted  in  the  most 
adverse  conditions. 

The  habit  of  looking  at  the  best  side  of  every  event 
was  declared  by  Dr.  Johnson  to  be  better  than  a  thou- 
sand pounds  a  year.  It  was  blind  George  Matheson 
who  sang,  "  I  trace  the  rainbow  through  the  rain." 

Six  years  ago,  a  dear  friend  of  my  own  was  dying 
of  cancer  in  the  throat.  She  had  devoted  her  life  and 
her  money  to  helping  "  the  weakest  things."  In  the 
midst  of  her  busy  concern  with  efforts  for  ameliorat- 
ing the  lot  of  slum  children  she  had  been  seized  with 
cancer  of  a  most  malignant  type.  A  week  or  two 
before  her  death  she  asked  me  to  come  and  say  a  last 
farewell.  "  I  have  cast  aside  all  earthly  things,"  she 
wrote,  "  and  am  patiently  awaiting  the  end."  I  ar- 
rived when  she  was  under  the  influence  of  morphia, 
medically  administered  to  allay  her  excruciating 
agonies,  and  I  had  to  wait  until  the  effects  of  the  drug 
had  passed  away.  Then  I  was  shown  into  her  room. 
She  greeted  me  with  that  radiant  smile  which  no  one 
who  knew  her  ever  forgets ;  and  before  I  could  speak 
she  said  in  a  perfectly  calm  and  steady  voice :  "  Now, 
please,  let  us  be  cheerful.  I  am  not  going  to  allow 
anything  or  anybody  to  interfere  with  my  enjoying 
my  dying."  Surely  such  cheerfulness  has  never  been 
surpassed.  All  my  memories  of  that  last  quarter  of 
an  hour  with  my  dying  friend  are  memories  of  quiet 
cheerfulness.  I  never  understood  before  what  Brown- 


150  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

irig  really  meant  by  "  greeting  the  Unseen  with  a 
cheer." 

For  ten  years  I  had  as  an  office  colleague  the  late 
Rev.  Jonathan  Brierley  ("  J.  B."),  a  man  whose  whole 
career  was  dogged  by  nervous  weakness  and  uncer- 
tain physical  health.  Yet  there  never  was  a  more 
incorrigible  optimist  than  this  minister- journalist, 
who  never  knew  when  he  got  up  in  the  morning 
whether  he  might  not  be  stricken  by  illness  before, 
night  and  condemned  to  his  bed  for  weeks.  But  he 
used  to  tell  us  that  every  morning  as  he  got  up  he 
said  to  himself,  "  Brierley,  you  old  sinner ;  you  get 
heaps  better  than  your  deserts !  "  His  maxim  in  life 
was  to  "  make  your  own  inside  weather."  Whatever 
the  elements  might  be  doing,  however  cloudy  the 
skies,  or  piercing  the  wind,  or  depressing  the  political 
outlook,  or  exacting  the  day's  work,  he  insisted  that 
if  you  made  your  own  inside  weather  and  kept  your 
mental  barometer  at  "  set  fair "  and  your  spiritual 
thermometer  well  above  summer  heat,  you  were 
happy,  and  no  one  could  rob  you  of  your  cheerful- 
ness. By  this  maxim  Jonathan  Brierley  lived.  He 
advocated  cheerfulness  by  word  and  pen,  but  above 
all  by  his  sunny  temperament. 

Adam  Lindsay  Gordon  wrote  four  lines  that  have 
cheered  many  wayfarers  along  life's  hard  ways. 

"In  this  world  of  froth  and  bubble, 

Two  things  stand  like  stone: 
Kindness  in  another's  trouble, 
Courage  in  your  own." 

"  It  is  quite  wonderful  in  this  age,"  said  Thomas 
Carlyle,  "  to  find  a  man  so  happy  and  so  serenely  con- 


CHEEBFULNESS  151 

fident  as  Browning  is ;  but  he  is  very  different  from 
me."  Carlyle's  remark  is  a  combination  of  worthy 
envy  and  honest  confession.  The  perennial  cheerful- 
ness with  which  Robert  Browning  confronted  life 
contrasts  sharply  with  Thomas  Carlyle's  incessant 
whining.  Browning  lived  in  the  faith  that  "  God's 
in  His  heaven :  all's  right  with  the  world."  Thomas 
Carlyle  wondered  daily  if  life  was  really  worth  liv- 
ing. True,  Browning  had  the  digestion  of  an  ostrich, 
while  Carlyle  suffered  from  chronic  dyspepsia:  and 
"  while  Browning  basked  in  Italian  sunshine,  Carlyle 
lived  in  Chelsea."  Still,  the  poet's  experiences  of  life 
had  not  all  been  happy.  He  had  endured  neglect, 
seen  poets  of  baser  metal  leap  into  popularity  while 
he  worked  in  comparative  obscurity.  He  had  had 
disappointments,  rebuffs,  and  setbacks.  But  Brown- 
ing's was  a  cheerful  soul;  Carlyle's  a  sombre  spirit. 
Browning  found  life  "  smacking  sweet."  At  seventy 
he  sang: — 

"  I  find  earth  not  grey,  but  rosy ; 

Heaven  not  grim,  but  fair  of  hue. 
Do  I  stoop  ?    I  pluck  a  posy ! 
Do  I  stand  and  stare?    All's  blue!" 

At  seventy,  Carlyle,  morose  and  embittered,  shrieked 
and  sobbed  over  life's  disillusionments  and  petty 
worries ;  and  only  rose  into  an  heroic  figure  when  he 
cried  over  his  dead  wife:  "Ah,  if  I  could  but  have 
five  minutes  with  her,  only  to  assure  her  that  I  loved 
her  all  through  that !  " 

The  cheerfulness  that  most  readily  wins  our  ad- 
miration is  cheerfulness  in  adversity.  Ella  Wheeler 
Wilcfox  puts  it  into  the  familiar  rhyme : — 


162  THE  STEATEGY  OF  LIFE 

"  It  is  easy  enough  to  be  pleasant 

When  life  flows  by  like  a  song; 
But  the  man  who's  worth  while 

Is  the  man  who  will  smile 
When  everything  goes  dead  wrong." 

I  always  like  to  recall  the  philosophical  cheerfulness 
of  the  famous  Lord  Westbury  when  his  horses  ran 
away  with  him  in  the  brougham.  "  I  can't  hold  these 
horses  in,"  the  alarmed  coachman  cried  to  his  master. 
Lord  Westbury  looked  up  from  a  book  he  was  read- 
ing. "  Then  drive  them  into  something  cheap,"  he 
replied.  The  Law  Lord  had  an  economical  as  well 
as  a  cheerful  mind. 

Cheerfulness  has  immense  bearings  on  health — 
bodily  health  no  less  than  mental  health.  Nurses  de- 
clare that  cheerful  patients  make  quicker  recoveries 
from  illness  than  fretful  or  irritable  patients.  This 
is  as  true  of  children  as  of  adults.  A  cheerful  habit 
of  mind  induces  sleep,  and  it  assuredly  aids  diges- 
tion— "  Laugh  and  grow  fat !  "  The  secret  of  suc- 
cess in  happiness,  holiness,  or  health,  has  been  said  to 
be  cultivation  from  within. 

A  thousand  definitions  of  optimism  have  been 
coined,  and  one  I  like  best  defines  it  as  cheerfulness 
in  active  operation  in  an  unquenchable  confidence 
that  the  worst  is  past.  This  mood  of  mind  is  the 
best  antidote  to  worry — the  besetting  sin  of  our 
civilization.  Joseph  Cowan's  description  of  an  op- 
timist as  "  a  man  of  cheerful  yesterdays  and  confident 
to-morrows,"  holds  the  field  against  many  wittier 
definitions.  Confidence  in  to-morrow  drives  worry 
afield.  George  MacDonald  truly  says  that  it  is  only 
when  to-morrow's  burden  is  added  to  the  burden  of 


CHEERFULNESS  163 

to-day  that  the  weight  is  more  than  a  man  can  bear. 
There  is  sound  sense  in  the  maxim  that  we  should 
neither  borrow  trouble  nor  anticipate  anxieties. 
"  I've  had  a  heap  of  troubles  in  my  lifetime,"  sighed 
an  old  lady,  "  but  most  of  them  never  came."  Half 
our  worries  are  born  of  needless  fears  that  prove 
liars. 

What  an  example  of  cheerfulness  Theodore  Roose- 
velt presented  to  the  world  in  his  last  year  of  life! 
A  friend  called  to  condole  with  him  when  his  son 
was  killed.  Roosevelt  anticipated  the  condolence. 
In  a  cheery  voice  he  cried :  "  Haven't  I  some  bully 
boys :  one  dead  and  two  in  hospital !  "  Sciatica  laid 
him  low,  and  he  was  threatened  with  rheumatoid 
arthritis.  The  possibility  that  he  might  have  to 
spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in  an  invalid  chair  was 
broken  gently  to  this  man  of  action.  "All  right," 
was  his  cheerful  answer,  "  I  can  live  that  way,  too." 
But  the  strenuous  liver  was  spared  that.  In  three 
weeks  he  was  dead. 

A  few  cheerful  rules  of  life  are  worth  living  by. 
Make  your  own  inside  weather,  shoulder  your  own 
burdens,  cultivate  a  blithe  spirit,  and  keep  a  clean 
conscience.  So  fortified  a  man  can  face  trouble 
without  capitulation. 

"  For  the  test  of  the  heart  is  trouble 

And  it  always  comes  with  the  years, 
And  the  smile  that  is  worth  the  praise  of  earth, 
Is  the  smile  that  shines  through  the  tears." 


XXIII 
PUBLIC  SERVICE 

THE  goal  of  a  successful  life  should  be  a  large 
measure,  not  of  personal  ease,  but  of  public 
service.  "  What  strikes  me  as  a  very  per- 
fect ideal  of  life,"  said  Dr.  John  Watson  ("  Ian  Mac- 
laren"),  "is  that  a  man  born  into  a  country  should 
carry  that  country  continually  in  his  heart  and  mind. 
It  matters  not  on  what  side  of  politics  he  may  be,  but 
it  does  matter  that  a  man  should  seek  to  serve  his 
country  by  all  the  advice  and  help  in  his  power ;  and 
that  in  the  political  world  he  should  be  an  example  of 
wisdom,  charity,  moderation,  and  high  dignity,  sancti- 
fying the  politics  of  the  land.  Service  is  the  crown- 
ing glory  of  man,  and  however  humble  a  man's 
sphere,  he  can,  by  exercising  to  the  fullest  possible 
degree  his  responsibilities  as  a  citizen,  render  worthy 
service -to  his  day  and  generation." 

The  European  War  was  fought  to  make  the  world 
safe  for  democracy;  the  task  of  the  future  is  to  make 
democracy  safe  for  the  world.  By  conferring  a  vote 
upon  a  man,  the  State  thrusts  upon  him  a  tremendous 
power  for  good  or  ill,  and  no  young  man  who  aspires 
to  be  a  worthy  citizen  will  exercise  his  franchise  with- 
out a  deep  sense  of  his  responsibility  to  the  common- 
wealth. This  is  the  truest  patriotism.  Unfortu- 
nately, many  young  men  find  themselves  possessed  of 
the  vote  before  they  have  learned  either  to  value  it 

'54 


PUBLIC  SEBVICE  155 

rightly  or  use  it  wisely.  They  inherit  a  party-political 
tradition ;  without  thinking  things  out  for  themselves 
they  echo  party  shibboleths  and  assimilate  party 
prejudices.  By  breaking  up  the  old  party  system  the 
European  War  is  compelling  men  to  go  over  the 
political  fundamentals  afresh  and  seek  new  align- 
ments of  party  and  ideals. 

Selfishness  enters  into  politics — as  it  enters  into 
every  human  activity;  but  high  idealism  glistens  oc- 
casionally from  its  drab  levels  like  gold  from  the 
quartz  rock.  Let  a  young  man  cherish  what  idealism 
he  can  discern  in  the  politics  of  his  day,  and  then  let 
him  strive,  as  far  as  opportunities  allow,  to  push  for- 
ward the  causes  that  appeal  most  to  his  idealism. 
"  Every  young  man,"  says  Dr.  James  Stalker,  "  should 
try  to  have  in  him  the  passion  for  making  the  world 
better:  only  he  must  see  to  it  that  it  is  a  practical 
thing,  and  not  mere  wind  and  words.  It  is  possible 
to  go  on  dreaming  and  vaporing  about  the  improve- 
ment of  the  world  without  doing  a  single  act  of  real 
kindness  to  any  human  being." 

Patriotism  that  waves  flags  and  wears  conspicuous 
national  emblems  is  discounted  nowadays — it  is  gen- 
erally the  suspicious  patriotism  of  the  profiteer  and 
the  exploiter.  But  patriotism  that  seeks  to  serve  in 
humbleness  of  heart  and  purity  of  motive  is  a  sacra- 
mental thing. 

A  young  man's  first  public  service  may  take  simple 
forms  and  yet  be  effectual.  Leadership  of  a  Scouts' 
troop,  or  lieutenancy  of  a  Boys'  Brigade,  or  help  in 
a  boys'  club,  or  even  teaching  in  a  Sunday  school  are 
forms  of  service  of  profound  value  to  the  common- 
wealth'. Moreover,  they  are  excellent  training- 


156  THE  STRATEGY  OF  LIFE 

grounds  for  larger,  later  service.  Every  kind  of  work 
that  contributes  to  the  moral  uplift  of  our  generation 
is  worthy  of  all  acceptance. 

All  service  to  humanity  is  religious  work,  though 
in  the  past  the  Christian  Church  has  been  grudging 
in  its  recognition  of  this  inter-union  of  the  sacred 
and  the  secular.  A  broader  vision  is  laying  hold  of 
the  Church.  "  During  the  sixty  years  of  my  life," 
said  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  recently,  "  I  have  seen  a 
radical  revolution  in  the  thought  and  spirit  of  the 
Christian  Church.  In  1859,  tne  question  which  the 
evangelists  endeavored  to  provoke  in  the  minds  of 
their  hearers  was,  'What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved?' 
To-day  the  fundamental  question  is  coming  to  be, 
'  What  can  I  do  to  serve  others  ? '  Then  the  emphatic 
word  was  salvation;  to-day  the  emphatic  word  is 
service.  And  in  service  we  are  finding  salvation." 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES 

JAMES  M.  LUDLOW,  P.P.,  Lia.D. 
Author  of"  The  Captain  of  the  Janizaries  "  "Dtborak,"  ett. 

Along  the  Friendly  Way 

Reminiscences  and  Impressions.  Frontispiece, 
I2mo,  cloth,  net 

Dr.  l,udlow  has  observed  keenly,  and  thought  wisely 
and  deeply;  he  has  read  extensively,  traveled  widely,  and 
rubbed  elbows  and  wits  with  men  great  and  little  of  many 
nations  and  under  varying  condition!.  He  is  the  "full 
man"  of  which  the  philosopher  speaks.  And  all  these 
intellectual  and  spiritual  riches  garnered  from  many  har- 
vests he  spreads  before  the  reaper  in  a  style  that  is  re- 
markable for  its  felicity  of  phrasing,  the  color  of  its  varied 
imagery,  and  its  humor,  warmth,  and  human  sympathy. 

HERBERT  H.  GOITEN,  F.R.G.S. 

The  Napoleon  of  the  Pacific: 
Kamenameha  the  Great 

Illustrated,  I2mo,  cloth,  net 

The  history  of  the  great  chieftian  who,  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  effected  the  union  of  the 
eight  islands  of  the  Hawaiian  Archipelago  and  welded 
them  into  a  kingdom.  Both  student  and  general  reader 
will  find  THE  NAPOLEON  OF  THE  PACIFIC  a  richly. 
stored  mine  of  deeply  interesting  information,  extremely 
difficult  to  come  at  in  any  other  form. 

CLARA  E.    LAUGHLIN 

Foch  the  Man 

New  Revised  and  Enlarged  Edition  with  Ad- 
ditional Illustrations.  Net 

W.  B.  McCormick  in  the  AT.  Y.  Sun  says:  "Miss  Laugli- 
lin  has  let  nothing  escape  her  that  will  throw  liwht  on  the 
development  of  his  character.  A  revelation  of  the  man 
who  at  sixty-seven  put  the  crowning  touch  t«  the  com- 
plete defeat  of  Germany's  military  pretensions." 

FREDERICK  LYNCH,   P.P. 

The  One  Great  Society 

A  Book  of  Recollections.    I2mo,  cloth,  net 

Records  oT  some  personal  reminiscences  and  recoUec 
tions  of  the  author,  who,  as  preacher,  editor  and  promi 
rent  member  of  one  or  two  international  organizations, 
has  met  many  of  the  world's  prominent  men  in  the  fields 
of  divinity,  philanthropy,  literature  and  reform. 


THE  NEW  WORLD  ORDER 

PROF.  A.  T.  ROBERTSON,  P.P.,  LL.D. 

The  New  Citizenship 

The   Christian   Facing  a   New   World   Order. 


Net 


qp  b 

"Characterized    by     the     thoroughgoing,     wide-reaching 
holarship   for   which   Professor   Robertson   is  internation- 


GEORGE  WOOD   ANDERSON 

Problem—or  Opportunity? 

Which  is  it  the  Church  is  Now  Facing.  i2mo, 
cloth,  net 

Mr.  Anderson,  an  evangelist,  has  seen  service  with  the 
American  boys  on  the  battle-front,  and  impelled  by  his 
vivid  experiences  oversea,  addresses  himself  afresh  to  the 
problems  and  opportunities  now  facing  the  Christian 
church.  A  plea  for  a  more  devoted  working  and  applica- 
tion of  the  program  Christ  laid  out  for  His  followers,  to 
the  clamant  needs  of  humanity  at  large. 

C.  B.  WILLIAMS,  Ph.D.,  P.P. 

Citizens  of  Two  Worlds 

I2tno,  cloth,  net 

"A  volume  of  addresses  growing  out  of  the  spirit  of  this 
new  age  of  democracy  and  brotherhood,  which  speaks  to 
the  hearts  of  struggling  men  and  women  who  want  to 
solve  the  age's  economic  and  social  problems  by  following 
the  teachings  of  the  Nazarene.  Sermons  vhich  fho'w  ho-v 
to  reach  up  to  heaven  for  the  dynamic  and  inspiration  to 
reach  down  to  earth  and  help  its  needy  millions." — Chris- 
tian Work. 

WILLIAM  C.  SCHAEFFER,  P.P. 

The  Greater  Task 

Studies  in  Social  Service.  Cloth,  net 
"This  author  believes  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  com- 
ing;  that  it  has  come;  that  it  will  continue  to  come  in 
ever  greater  and  greater  power  and  glory.  He  writes 
with  force  and  illumination,  and  brings  home  with  gren 
effectiveness,  both  to  the  individual  and  the  Church,  the 
sense  of  duty  and  the  broad  scope  of  obligation  and  op- 
portunity in  the  present  crisis.  A  book  of  real  leadership 
and  merit." — Christian  Guardian. 


AFTER  THE  WAR 


CHARLES  E.  JEFFERSON,  P.P. 

What  the  War  Has  Taught  Us 

i2mo,  cloth,  net 

From  first  to  last,  Dr.  Jefferson's  standpoint  is  that  of 
the  Christian  minister,  and,  chiefly,  his  book  is  concerned 
with  showing  how  the  War  has  supplied  the  Christian 
Church  with  new  and  vigorous  arguments  for  the  truth 
that  is  in  her,  together  with  new  and  poignant  illustra- 
tions of  the  fundamental  teachings  of  Jesus. 

THOMAS  TIPLADY  (Chaplain)     Author  of  "  The  Crtn 
"  '  at  the  Front 

Social  Christianity  in  the  New  Era 

I2mo,  cloth,  net 

A  reconstruction  message  for  every  one  interested  in 
the  Church  to-day.  The  work  of  a  man,  who  has  seen 
and  learned  much  of  the  average  man's  view  of  the 
Church  during  his  three  years  of  daily  army  intercourse. 

There  is  scarcely  -a  side  of  social  life  not  touched  upon. 
It  is  a  book  of  Christian  idealism  which  will  make  leaders 
think  for  themselves  and  keep  on  thinking  until  remedie; 
%e  found. 
CHAPLAIN  TIPLADrS  OTHER  BOOKS 

The  Soul  of  the  Soldier 

I2mo,  cloth,  net 

The  Cross  at  the  Front 

I2mo,  cloth,  net 

"Among  the  great  mass  of  war  literature  these  books 
stand  out  as  of  unique  purpose  and  power.  They  are  like 
no  other,  and  no  others  are  like  them." — Col.  Chr.  Advocate. 

NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 

Rebuilding  Ruined  Europe 

The  Human  Side  of  the  Problem.  I2mo,  cloth, 
net 

A  graphic  survey 'of  the  appalling  havoc  wrought  by  the 
Great  War  throughout  the  whole  Continent  of  Europe, 
together  with  an  approximate  forecast  of  the  possibilities 
possessed  by  both  peoples  and  countries  for  rebuilding,  re- 
construction and  renewed  prosperity. 

PROF.   HUGH  BLACK         Author  of  "Friendship."  tte. 

"Le&  We  Forget" 

I2mo,  cloth,  net 

Dr.  Black  subjects  Democracy,  Patriotism,  State-Rights, 
Religion,  War,  Peace,  Pacifism  and  the  League  of  Na- 
tions to  a  close,  searching  scrutiny,  indicating  how,  by  a 
just  and  sane  interpretation,  they  may  be  made  to  provide 
a  larger  incentive  to  truer  living,  and  a  finer  apprehension 
of  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  world-citizenship. 


FICTION  JUVENILE.  ETC. 

/.  /.   BELL  Author  ef  "  Wet  Macfrttgor,"  ttt. 

Jusl  Jemima 

I2mo,  cloth,  net 

Another  "Mile  of  Smiles"  with  J.  J.  Bell.  His  latest 
creation  is  marked  by  the  same  dry,  pungent  humor  for 
which  he  has  long  been  noted,  and  "Just  Jemima"  will 
quickly  take  its  place  next  to  "Wee  MacGreegor,"  "Oh, 
Christina  I"  "Johnny  Pryde,"  and  Bell's  other  books,  ove* 
which  millions  have  laughed  and  rejoiced. 

ITINIFRED   ARNOLD  Author  of 

•  •     T '  "Little  Merry  Christmas" 

Miss  Emeline's  Kith  and  Kin 

Illustrated,  I2mo,  cloth,  net 

A  capital  portrayal  of  American  country  life  as  it  it 
lived  in  the  villages  of  New  England.  Miss  Emeline's 
dealings  with  her  "kith  and  kin"  make  up  a  most  divert- 
ing narrative,  one  certain  to  win  for  Miss  Arnold  large 
additions  to  the  friends  she  made  with  "Mis'  Bassett"  and 
"iittle  Merry  Christmas." 

DILLON   WALLACE 

The  Ragged  Inlet  Guards 

A  Story  of  Adventure  in  Labrador.  I2mo,  il- 
lustrated, cloth,  net 

In  Wallace's  latest  story  a  wartime  setting  is  given  to 
the  fascinating  Labrador  stage.  The  four  "Inlet  Guards" 
furnish  round  after  round  of  exciting  adventures,  includ- 
ing the  thrilling  capture  of  a  German  wireless  station, 
while  their  seniors  were  fighting  "over  seas." 

MARY  STE1TART  Author  of  "Once-Upon-a-Ttmt  TaUt" 

"Tell  Me  a  Story  I  Never  Heard 
Before" 

Illustrated,  I2mo,  cloth,  net 

With  deft  and  practiced  art.  Miss  Stewart  weaves  a 
modern  garland  out  of  blossoms  of  Story-telling  as  old 
AS  the  ages.  About  the  Daisy,  the  Fleur-de-lys,  the 
Pansy,  the  Tulip,  and  so  forth,  she  has  entwined  old- 
world  legends  of  the  days  of  chivalry,  of  high  adventure, 
of  pastoral  romance. 

S.  HALL  YOUNG        Author  */" Alaska  Days  vith  John 

•  Afuir,"  ATht  Klondike  Clmn,"  eW 

Adventures  in  Alaska 

Illustrated,  I2rno,  cloth,  net 

"When  a  man's  actual  experiences  are  more  interesting 
than  ingenious  invention,  he  is  wise  if  he  avoids  fiction 
and  writes  a  straight  narrative  of  his  adventures.  This 
is  what  Dr.  Young  has  done  in  this  illustrated  account  of 
some  of  his  remarkable  experiences  during  over  thirty 
years  work  in  Alaska. — The  Outlook. 


University  of  California 

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